


I Am Inimitable

by good_eviening



Series: The One Thing In Life I Can Control 'verse [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, But it'll pay off i promise, Cross-Posted on Quotev, Hamilton References, It might be a bit slow, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Spider-Man: Homecoming, Precious Peter Parker, Precious Reader, Protective May Parker (Spider-Man), Reader Needs a Hug, Superhero Reader - Freeform, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vigilante Reader, YeeterMyGoodPeter, or at least, reader's got powers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-07-12 15:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 44,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19948618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/good_eviening/pseuds/good_eviening
Summary: (Y/n) and Peter have finally taken down the biggest threat to them, the Vulture, after months of weird new powers and time travel. Now, though, foreknowledge can't help them anymore. They're in all new territory, and, as things shift from what they once were into something nobody could have predicted, they're ready to show the world just who Spider-Man and Supernova are.- - - - -NOTE: Be sure to read the first story in this series first, 'The One Thing In Life I Can Control', before reading this one. I mean, you could go without it, but, considering the crazy shit that went down in the other, I'd say it's safer to just read that one first.





	1. (Y/n) Interlude I

(Y/n) (L/n)'s childhood was anything but the picture-perfect one.

She had been born to a woman who was never even in a _relationship_ with her father. Carliana (L/n) had met (Y/n)'s father while out and about one night and the next morning hadn't even spoken to him.

Carliana always refused to tell (Y/n) who her father was. It didn't matter, apparently. In her mother's words, (Y/n)'s father was a "no-good scoundrel that you're better off without."

It didn't mean that (Y/n) didn't _want_ to know who he was.

She didn't have any way to find out, though.

Carliana had been laid off from her job when (Y/n) was about five when the company she was working for went out of business. They'd had enough money to last a few months before things started to go even more downhill.

(Y/n) had always thought that her mother loved her, somewhere, deep down inside of her, but that hadn't been apparent since before Carliana lost her job. After that, Carliana had been out and about looking for work so often and failing, that they moved every month when she wasn't able to pay the rent.

Despite their situation, Carliana always dressed her best. When she was younger and only wearing clothes from the thrift store, (Y/n) would ask her mother why _she_ got to wear nice clothes while her daughter was forced to wear second-hand (more like third or fourth-hand, she often thought bitterly) instead.

Carliana had reassured her that it was to look nice for interviews.

(Y/n) scowled nowadays at the thought that her younger self had believed that obvious lie.

Carliana would head out in the evenings on most days and not return to their mostly-bare apartment until nearly noon the next day (sometimes after). (Y/n) would pointedly ignore her mother as the woman walked in. Sometimes, a few years after this first started, when she was around eight, (Y/n) had mustered up enough bravery (and spite, to be perfectly honest), to turn to her mother as the woman walked in the door, her make-up smudged and one earring in backward, and ask, "How was the interview, _Mom..._?"

The only response she had gotten was a glare that made her immediately fall quiet followed by Carliana walking to the small dining table she was at and knocking the food (Y/n) was eating right onto the floor. They stared at one another for a long moment, each seeming to put more intensity than the other into their eyes, before Carliana broke the connection, turned away, pointed at the food and plate (thank god it was a paper one) on the ground, said, "Clean that up, I'm going to sleep," and stormed off down the hall. 

She had heard a door slam a moment later.

One thing that (Y/n) always knew that she could be grateful for, though, was the fact that her mother never made their confrontations _physical_. She knew that some people had it much worse than she did.

Even so, there were a few scares. When (Y/n) was maybe seven, she pushed a few too many of Carliana's buttons. The woman had been out since one in the afternoon and stumbled home at two in the morning.

" _Why are you still awake?_ " She had asked when (Y/n) opened the door for her after seeing her fumble with her keys through the peephole.

" _I was-_ "

" _And why is nothing clean?_ "

(Y/n), who had been forced to mature much faster than she should have, had scowled at that.

" _You didn't_ ask _me to clean anything_ ," (Y/n) said, stepping forward and jabbing a finger at her mother's heart. Carliana was, obviously, taller than her, but the message got across anyways. And (Y/n) had been too tired to care.

" _I thought it would be understood when I asked you not to destroy everything while I was gone,_ " Carliana had responded. She had moved toward the couch and sank into it as she spoke. (Y/n) glared at her. " _Could you clean it up now, then?_ "

" _Why don't_ you _do it?_ " (Y/n) had known that her mother was probably barely in a state to move, or really do anything but sleep, but she didn't care. She was tired, but she had stayed up and waited for her mother to get home. She didn't remember _why_ , exactly, but it had made sense in her little seven-year-old brain at the time.

Carliana had turned to her. The woman had mustered up a glare and said, " _I'm tired._ "

(Y/n) had gritted her teeth and balled her fists. " _Well, I'm tired too,_ Mom _! Did you ever think about that? No, you only ever think of yourself. I stayed up waiting for you to come home only for you to tell me to clean. I'm seven years old,_ Mom _! It's not_ my _job to clean up after_ your _messes-!"_

(Y/n)'s words had failed her as her mother suddenly stood up, strolled across the room, and raised a hand up to strike her. (Y/n)'s (e/c) eyes had grown wide and she had flinched back, trying to move away from the slap when she realized her mother had her other hand on her shoulder, holding her in place. The girl had immediately braced for impact.

There was a long silence. (Y/n) had eased her eyes open to see her mother standing there. Her hand was still raised.

Then, a moment later, it dropped.

(Y/n) had looked up at her mother to see that Carliana's eyes were just as wide as her own were. She stared at her daughter for a long moment before kneeling down in front of her.

(Y/n) stared into her mother's eyes, ignoring the bags under them. There was a long silence, filled only by the sounds of cars outside. It _was_ a Saturday night after all (or Sunday morning...whatever). 

" _(Y/n),_ _I..._ "

The quiet fell again as Carliana bit her lip and looked away (maybe she was who (Y/n) got that habit from). The woman gripped her shoulders a bit harder for a moment, her nails digging into (Y/n)'s skin through her shirt before she had stood up and said, " _Meet me in my room in fifteen minutes._ "

(Y/n) hadn't moved as Carliana walked away, the door to her room opening and closing a moment later. (Y/n) had moved to her own room after she was sure her mother wasn't re-emerging. She had gotten her pajamas on (pink ones covered in yellow ducks that were a size too big and had a hold on one of the knees) and yanked her hair out of the ponytail she had put it in that morning before turning off her bedroom light and heading to her mother's room. 

She had stood at the door, staring up at it for a long few minutes, before finally taking a deep breath and knocking on the door.

" _Come in_."

(Y/n) had opened the door and closed it behind her before scanning the room before her. 

Carliana's room had more furnishings than (Y/n)'s did, what with end tables next to her bed, a full dresser with a mirror above it, _curtains_. The girl hadn't seen her mother's new room since they moved to this new apartment two weeks ago. 

Carliana herself was seated on her bed, wrapped in a robe. Her (h/c) locks were down and hanging around her head. She was faced away from (Y/n), staring off out the window on the opposite wall. The only light in the room came from the lamp the was flickering on the end table next to her.

" _Mom?_ "

Carliana had started and then turned to (Y/n) as if just realizing that she was there. This night was one that (Y/n), strangely, remembered vividly, and it was always one of those moments with her mother than truly confused her. Most of the time, when she looked back on it, despite being rocky, and hard, (Y/n)'s relationship with her mother, and her childhood in general, was pretty straight forward. But there were some times that she remembered in detail when her mother did something that threw a wrench in that idea of just a stable mutual dislike. This night had always been one of them.

" _Oh, (Y/n), there you are_." She had stared at her daughter for a long time and that had been the moment that (Y/n) realized, vaguely, how strangely bloodshot her mother's eyes were. After a moment, Carliana had patted the spot on the bed beside her and said, " _Sit_."

(Y/n) had carefully walked around the bed to her mother's side, staring at the woman for a moment before carefully taking a seat. She had placed her hand on the golden-brown comforter she sat on and bunched some of it up in her fist before looking up at her mother. " _Yes?_ "

Carliana had stared at her for a long moment, and (Y/n) had been surprised by the sadness behind her eyes. After a period of time that felt like forever, Carliana had sighed. 

" _You know I love you, (Y/n). Right?_ "

That had always thrown a wrench in (Y/n)'s opinions on her mother because she can _never_ imagine Carliana saying those words as genuinely as she had at that moment.

Sometimes, she wondered if she'd imagined the conversation altogether.

She knows, deep down, that she hadn't.

(Y/n) had stared at her mother for a long time before nodding slowly. She didn't want to risk speaking. She hadn't been sure if she was telling the truth with that nod, either, actually, but she had nodded all the same.

Carliana had stared at her before looking away and sighing again. " _I just..._ " She had faltered before continuing, " _I know, I_ know _we don't have the best relationship. I may not have wanted this, may not have wanted-_ " She had stopped herself before finishing that sentence, but (Y/n) had always known what she had almost said. _You_... " _But I... You need to know that I would never,_ never _hurt you._ " (Y/n) remembered actively raising an eyebrow at that.

" _I know that I haven't been the best mother._ " She laughed bitterly. " _Far from it, but, hell, I_ try _. Maybe I don't try to be nice, maybe I don't try to be a_ good _mother, but I try to be_ a _mother._ " She had glanced at (Y/n) before fully turning to her again and brushing a stray hair from her daughter's young face. (Y/n) never knew what to think of that.

Carliana had even cracked a smile. " _You're going to be so beautiful when you get older, you know that?_ " (Y/n) always laughed when she thought of that statement. The smile had faded from Carliana's lips a moment later. " _Things are never going to be easy. Not for me, and_ definitely _not for you. And, as you get older, I know, I_ know _that you are going to hate me. Or, at least, you're going to want to. Hell, I don't blame you if you hate me already._ "

There had been a beat of silence. Carliana had turned and looked out the window. She was tall enough to see the street below through it.

_"If I'm being honest, I probably wouldn't even be telling you these things if I weren't so sleep-deprived and loopy from said sleep deprivation._ " She had laughed, but it hadn't sounded much like a laugh. " _I know in my heart that, no matter what I do, I'm not going to be able to stop myself from being like_ her _, but I'm going to try. Even if it does nothing_." There had been silence before Carliana had leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her daughter's forehead. " _No matter what I say, or do, I'm only doing what is best for you. What I_ know _is best for you_." She leaned back and shifted to where she was closer to laying on the bed than sitting on it. " _Now, go to bed._ "

(Y/n) had gotten off the bed and out of the room as fast as humanly possible. The lamp had flicked off as she closed the door.

(Y/n) still didn't know, to this day, who ' _her_ ' was.

She still didn't know, to this day, if her mother had been being genuine, or was just drunk.

(She always pointedly ignored the fact that there had been no alcohol on Carliana's breath at all).

While there were moments when (Y/n) subconsciously wondered if there was more to her mother than just _hate_ (that was probably an over-exaggeration, actually), there were other memories that, most of the time, would override that.

One of the biggest ones was from when (Y/n) was in elementary school. To be specific, when she made her first ever _friend_.

Her name had been Kaitlyn.

(Y/n) had met her when she was in fourth grade. Kaitlyn had been a tan girl with curly brown hair, just an inch taller than (Y/n) herself, who seemed to always have earbuds in, listening to music every hour of the day. Even during class periods, to the young (Y/n)'s horror. Kaitlyn's eyes were big and bright, ever the observant girl. 

" _So,_ why _do compasses have a needle that moves all the time?_ " Kaitlyn had asked her one day, leaning over across the aisle from her desk to (Y/n)'s, holding out a compass to the girl, the needle wiggling as it moved.

Kaitlyn's wide eyes had turned on (Y/n), big and curious. (Y/n) cracked a smile at the other child and took the compass from her.

" _Well, actually, the needle always points the same direction. North._ " (Y/n) had turned the compass until the needle was pointing in the direction of North as labeled on the small device. " _See, if we point it so that the needle and the North on the compass line up, then you can see which direction is which._ "

Kaitlyn's eyes had widened as she stared down at the compass. " _Really?_ " She had asked, looking back up to (Y/n), her eyes sparkling. (Y/n) had nodded after a moment. Kaitlyn had grinned. Her smile was wide and blinding. " _Thanks! This'll help with my adventure today!_ " At that moment the bell had rung, letting the school know that they could go home. Kaitlyn's eyes turned to the door. She scooped up her backpack and turned to (Y/n) suddenly. " _You're my friend now. I tell my friends everything. I'll tell you about my adventure tomorrow!_ " Before (Y/n) could respond, the girl was giving her a wave before disappearing out the door.

True to her word, Kaitlyn had told (Y/n) the story of her 'adventure' in the forest the next day at school. Really, it just sounded like a walk through a few trees behind Kaitlyn's house, but (Y/n)'s classmate ( _friend_ ) was animated enough and exaggerated enough to make it entertaining, nonetheless.

And, from that day forward, Kaitlyn and (Y/n) were friends. Kaitlyn had _insisted_ upon it. (Y/n) noted that she had an insatiable curiosity of the world around her. Kaitlyn had dreamed of being an adventurer since she could walk, and she was constantly asking (Y/n) questions. (Y/n) happily answered them all. She loved having a friend. She didn't want to lose it.

One day, Kaitlyn had wanted to go to (Y/n)'s house after school the next day. (Y/n) had gone home and, nervously, asked her mother if her friend could come over the next day. Carliana had given her a long stare before nodding her agreement. (Y/n) had smiled wider than she had for a lot of her childhood and embraced her mother abruptly before disappearing into her room to do her homework.

The next day, Kaitlyn had taken the bus home with (Y/n).

" _(Y/n), who is this?_ "

The two fourth graders had been sitting on the floor of the main room of the apartment when Carliana suddenly appeared in the doorway. having just arrived home from... wherever she worked at this point.

" _This is Kaitlyn... She's the friend I told you about yesterday. The one you said could... could come over today._ "

Carliana had stared at her for a long moment before glancing at Kaitlyn before looking back and (Y/n) and nodding. " _All right, fine_." She moved to her room and slammed the door before her daughter could respond.

The next two hours were a blur in (Y/n)'s memory now. She only knew that she enjoyed it.

Then Carliana had emerged.

" _So, Kaitlyn, what are your plans when you get older?_ " 

(Y/n) had wanted to sink in on herself when she heard her mother's voice. 

Kaitlyn, however, ever the innocent, turned to Carliana with those big eyes of her, brushed a curl from her face, and grinned. " _I want to be an adventurer!_ "

Carliana stared at the girl for a moment before laughing, though it was obviously forced. " _That's cute_." She paused and (Y/n) watched as her mother and friend seemed to stare each other down. " _But what do you want to be_ really _?_ "

Kaitlyn had blinked in confusion. (Y/n) watched as it set into her friend's eyes.

" _Wha-What?_ "

Carliana raised an eyebrow and repeated, slowly, " _What do you_ really _want to be, because it_ can't _be an_ adventurer _..._ "

Kaitlyn had been silent for a moment, but (Y/n) had seen the defiance appear on her friend's face. Before she could stop it, Kaitlyn was speaking. " _With all due respect,_ Ms. (L/n) _, I want to be an adventurer, and I am going to_ be _an adventurer._ "

Carliana had glared at the girl. " _You will get_ nothing _from that, you brat._ Nothing _. You'll just end up alone, broke, in some alley somewhere,_ wishing _to_ _do it all again so that you won't make the same mistakes twice_."

Kaitlyn had stood right up at that moment, dropping the toy she was holding. Her earbud slid out of her ear, joining the small iPod she had left on the floor. She didn't look at (Y/n) as she moved.

(Y/n) had been desperate to save this playdate, to keep her friend, even if she knew that this wasn't salvageable anymore. She had stood up too, though. " _Katie, where are you going?_ "

Kaitlyn had turned back to (Y/n), but her eyes were cold. The sparkle wasn't there anymore. No more curiosity, no more adventure, not even any observance, just... nothing. " _My name is Kaitlyn, (Y/n). And I'm leaving._ " She didn't pick up her iPod as she moved toward the door and opened it. She didn't look back as she said, " _I'll see you at school tomorrow._ " The door had slammed closed a moment later.

There was a beat of silence before (Y/n) had turned to her mother with hard eyes and ground out, " _I hate you_."

Carliana had looked a bit startled by her words. " _What?_ "

" _I_ HATE _YOU!_ " 

Carliana had stood up suddenly and jabbed her daughter in the chest with her finger. " _I will_ not _be spoken to like that!_ "

" _You just ruined everything! You_ always _ruin everything!_ "

(Y/n) had run to her room before her mother could respond. As soon as her door had closed, Carliana had banged on the door for at least ten minutes, yelling the entire time, before she finally stomped off. 

When (Y/n) had emerged a few hours later for dinner, her mother had been silently sitting at the table, staring at a few papers in front of her. A beat had passed before Carliana had said firmly, " _You're grounded_."

She had been grounded for two months.

Not that it had changed anything.

She didn't have any friends anymore anyway. The last time she ever even _spoke_ to Kaitlyn was the next day, to return her iPod at school. Kaitlyn had stiffly thanked her and then immediately asked the teacher to be moved to the other side of the room.

They never spoke again.

When Carliana had met her boyfriend, Jeffery, and moved away to Florida, it had terrified (Y/n) for the first half of the year that she was alone. She hated her mother (she had said it out loud multiple times since that first time in fourth grade), but there was always the fact that her mother had _been_ there. If not for the constant arguments, then at least she was _there_. She was a presence, a constant presence, but now, the apartment was... _empty_.

Besides the fact that Carliana had bought her a brand new apartment, and even sold all their old furniture, leaving (Y/n) with next to nothing, she had the _audacity_ to send money every month and call it _generous_. 

Still, though, (Y/n) cried herself to sleep every night for six months. She hated the silence of her apartment.

She had slowly, though, slowly but surely made friends with the man at the front desk of her apartment building. His name was William. He called himself Lob.

She had begun to walk to school the week her mother left. It was more comfortable than the bus. It made her get up earlier too, what with the fact that her mother wasn't there to wake her up (or scream to get her up on bad days). Walking around the city made her familiar with it. Slowly, she learned every street. She knew every alley. It felt like she had wandered these streets all her life.

She got to know the people in the city. Not those living apartments, but those who lived in the _city_ , on the streets. In the alleys that she visited. The people were cold at first, but then warmed up to her. (Y/n) guessed she had a way of pulling them in when she was young and, well, seemingly innocent. After that, they all just sort of... latched onto her...

(Y/n) didn't know how many people she knew around the city. How many of those who slept in the alleys, or on the streets, knew her name? She knew that there were tens of thousands of homeless people in New York, and she knew a... few hundred at the most? Probably less than that, if she was being honest. She didn't know. She knew enough. The thing was, she recognized people in alleyways so often because she knew the people who weren't even living in shelters. 

It didn't _matter_ who she knew, though. All she knew was that she was going to do something to help them all. _All_ of them.

When (Y/n) was six, she knew that she was different when a boy on the playground near her apartment pulled her ponytail and in response she sent him rocketing into a tree twenty feet away. She had been very grateful that day that her mother had sent her to the park alone. She was out of the park and running to her apartment down the street before the boy had even gotten up.

Small incidents happened over the years when (Y/n) would do something that, upon further contemplation, she _shouldn't_ be able to do. Whether that was lifting things that were _far too big_ for her, or jumping off of the playground at the urges of the annoying kids behind her only to land on her feet more deftly than she ever thought possible.

When (Y/n) was twelve, maybe a month after her mother left for Florida, her powers _really_ began to manifest. 

Those had been strange times. Sometimes there would be bursts of purple energy, sometimes she would wake up and her hair would be a random color and she would have to try and hide it under a hat for days until it went away. One of the most pressing changes for her was the sudden increase in her senses. It was as if they were all dialed up to eleven. Or maybe closer to eleven-hundred.

(Y/n) had always been into science, and math, and engineering. It was her _thing_. She started developing devices around the age of thirteen to try and help with the loudness of the noise around her. Everything was just so _loud_ , and when she was entering high school the same year, she _had_ to make sure that she was ready to deal with everything that came with it.

(Y/n) had never been particularly confident about her abilities, especially when she was younger. All of that had changed when she had created ALICE.

(Y/n) had fallen in love with the idea of an A.I. the moment that she discovered what it was. The fact that Tony Stark, her lifelong idol, had one as well, helped her want to pursue that. She wanted to make an A.I. of her own.

And so, she had.

And ALICE was _amazing_.

(Y/n) had _made_ ALICE, but ALICE was more than she could ever hope she would be. ALICE wasn't like the A.I. that Tony Stark had and often talked about. FRIDAY. Honestly, ALICE seemed more like JARVIS, Tony's first A.I., the one that had seemed to become... more than just lines of code.

Because, even if (Y/n) couldn't believe it, that's what ALICE was.

Every time after Carliana had moved that the woman came up to New York for a visit, (Y/n) tried to push the experience out of her mind as soon as her mother was out the door.

So, yeah, things were pretty shitty overall. (Y/n) was, generally, alone in the world. After Kaitlyn, she didn't bother to make friends anymore. She didn't _care_ at that point. There was no point in making friends. They never ended in anything good for her. She wasn't worth the effort, she discovered most of them realized, anyway.

But, then, suddenly, Peter Parker came into her life.

And maybe, just maybe, things weren't going to be as shitty anymore.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we tie up a few things with May and (Y/n) finds out that a new phase of her life is about to begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Quotev](https://www.quotev.com/29904523)
> 
> The cameo for today was Amabelle, created by the second place winner of the first fan-art contest, braindead. You can find their art in the fan-art book for this story on my Quotev above.

"Who else have you told?" It took May a few moments but she managed to collect herself. 

"Well..." Peter thought for a moment. "Ned and MJ know our identities..." 

May raised an eyebrow. "What? When did _that_ happen?"

"Ned found out my identity back in, what, February?" Peter finished his statement with a question and glanced at (Y/n)  
for confirmation. She nodded.

"Yeah, yeah, right around when we came back, I think," she said. Peter had to admit, it felt a little freeing to be able to talk about their weird time travel so freely. Even when it was just him and (Y/n), they were always wary. Now, though...

"You told Ned before me?!" May exclaimed, glaring at her nephew.

Peter's face heated and he nodded. "Uh-huh...?"

May clicked her tongue and crossed her arms. "I'm disappointed, Peter..."

There was a silence before Peter gathered his thoughts and continued.

"Then I told you back in March, right?"

"March sixth," May nodded. Peter stared at her for a moment. She blinked at him. "What?"

"You remember the exact day?"

"Of course!" May exclaimed. "I always remember the exact days my life changes in a big way." She looked at (Y/n) and pointed a finger at her. "The day you came into my life, for example. February second, 2017."

(Y/n)'s cheeks darkened at her words and Peter resisted smirking at the color that flooded to her face.

"MJ found out around maybe April?" Peter said. This was the one that was the most confusing to him. MJ just kinda... figured it out.

"I thought it was May," (Y/n) said, turning to him after recovering from her slight embarrassment.

"No, no, definitely April," Peter asserted.

"I don't know about that..."

"How do you not remember when you told her?" May asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Well, that's the thing..." Peter dragged out the word, trying to think of the best way to say it.

"MJ figured it out on her own," (Y/n) said, helpfully speaking for him.

May sat there for a moment seeming to fight some sort of inner battle with herself. Peter had been her nephew for long enough to know when she was debating something fiercely in her head. Then, finally, she spoke. 

"She...She figured it out on her _own_...?"

Peter and (Y/n) exchanged glances before nodding unison.

May sighed and sat back. "How long have you been Spider-Man for, sweetie?"

"Almost two years, I think," Peter said. "Since that Oscorp field trip."

May let out another breath of air. "That long..." She fell silent again for a moment. On one of her hands, she fiddled with her thumb. The other hand was draped over the armrest of her chair. "That long and I never even noticed..." She looked back at the two. "So, then you told me about (Y/n)?" She asked, looking from one teenager to the other.

"No, no, we told Ned and MJ first."

"At the same time," (Y/n) added on to her friend's previous statement.

"When was this?"

"At the hotel in D.C.," Peter responded. "We... weren't sure if we were going to make it back in time for Nationals and stuff, so we needed to tell them so that they could cover for both of us if they needed to."

"And then you told me when you got back," May finished for them, sinking back into her chair even more. She tapped a finger against her lips and gazed off into the distance in thought. Her eyes wandered and then seemed to lock onto something. She narrowed her eyes and checked her phone.

"It's late," she spoke after a long moment of staring at the screen, which wasn't cracked at all, unlike Peter and (Y/n)'s own. "You two should head to bed. You've had a long few weeks." She stood up slowly. Her eyes widened a bit and she snorted. "Hell, _I've_ had a long few weeks, and I'm not even _doing_ the super-heroing..."

Peter let out a breathy laugh as the tone lightened a bit. He felt his mood improve even more as (Y/n) cracked an, albeit tired, smile.

The two teens stood up and May took a step toward them, shooing them in the direction of Peter's room. "Off with you, now, go, go, come on." Peter raised his hands in mock surrender as (Y/n) moved a bit faster and opened his door for the two of them. 

"Good night, May," Peter said as the two stepped into his room and he prepared to close the door as his friend began to climb onto the top bunk.

May smiled softly, and Peter was suddenly struck by how much he loved his aunt's smile. She leaned forward and pulled him down a bit to press a kiss to his forehead. "Good night, Peter. Larb you."

"Larb you, too."

He closed the door a second later.

}---{

(Y/n) and Peter slept in the next morning, too. May drove them to school an hour late.

During lunch, the two got extra work from Mrs. Winn, their math teacher, who didn't ask where they had been this time. Ned and MJ had, as usual, saved seats for them. Peter plopped down beside Ned and (Y/n) sat across from him.

"How'd you do on your math test, MJ?" (Y/n) asked, glancing at her friend. MJ had math the hour before lunch (third) and had complained for the past week about how annoying their current unit was. The other three had attempted to help her as best they could, but they didn't know until now how much help they had really been.

"Fine," MJ shrugged. "I guess. B-plus."

"That's great!" Ned exclaimed, smiling widely. He glanced at his friends. "Isn't-Isn't it?"

"Yeah," MJ said. Her lips pursed into a thin line. "Not good enough for my parents, probably."

Peter's eyebrows furrowed and (Y/n) couldn't help but do the same. "Why?" He asked. Peter's face scrunched up even more. "Are your parents _that_ serious about grades?"

MJ narrowed her eyes and glared into her sandwich. "My parents have _always_ been serious about grades. They're great. I love them. But..." For once, MJ looked like she was nervous to speak her mind. (Y/n) nudged her lightly in the side.

"Go on," she murmured, hoping to provide whatever support she could. 

MJ's eyes seemed to steel and she visibly set her jaw before continuing. "They let me switch out of Engineering for my STEM hour to go into BioChem instead." The three nodded along with her. They knew that. "But I think they're still holding onto the hope that this is all just a phase, that I'll grow out of it and want to be an engineer by the time I graduate." MJ looked full-on pissed now. "I've tried to explain it to them _so many times_ , but they just won't listen. Goes in one ear and right out the other." Her friends remained silent as she fumed.

"Since math is the closest thing I have to any sort of engineering class right now, they're holding onto that and placing that on a pedestal instead. They say that they're never disappointed, but whenever I bring home anything less than an A or an A-plus, I can _see_ the light draining from their eyes." Her nails were digging into the bread of the sandwich she was holding. MJ seemed to be getting more and more frustrated by the minute, and it was a scary sight to see. "I just wish that they would _listen to me_." She let out a breath of air. "They always encourage me going out to protests and shit like that, but when I want to do _one thing_ for _my future_ , it's like I'm not even there."

There was a silence before Ned spoke.

"I know what you mean."

All eyes turned to him. His cheeks seemed to darken a bit at the sudden attention of his friends he was getting, but he went on anyway.

"My parents are more serious about _all_ grades. They obviously _want_ me to go into STEM, that was one of the main reasons they put me in this school, but they care about the English and Spanish and shit too, cause those're things I'll need in whatever I do, too." He sighed and ran a hand through his neatly combed hair. "I... My parents're letting me decide what to with my life, and I'm grateful for that, but..."

"You're worried that they're going to hold you to such a high standard that you won't _want_ to do anything anymore," MJ finished for him. He looked up at her, and (Y/n) saw a strange new wave of understanding sweep between them.

There was a silence before (Y/n) said, in an attempt to lighten the mood, "Never did I think I'd be _grateful_ for how uninvolved my mom is in my life." 

A quiet fell before a wave of laughter swept among the group. After just a few moments, all four of them were roaring with laughter. It was such a stupid joke. Honestly wasn't even funny. But, at that moment, (Y/n) had never heard anything funnier.

}---{

(Y/n) and Peter waved goodbye to Ned and MJ as they all left the school after Decathlon practice. MJ had stepped right into the role of captain for the year, and (Y/n) had to admit that she was doing a great job of it. She was a natural born leader, honestly. (Y/n) shivered at the thought of what MJ could achieve if she was given even a five-minute conversation with Pepper Potts.

May's car was waiting there to pick Peter up. She had taken the day off today after all the stress of last night (coupled with how late she had stayed up, she wouldn't have safely functioned at work anyway). 

"Hey, May," Peter said, grinning at his aunt as he opened the back door to throw his backpack in. 

"Hey, May," (Y/n) said, smiling a bit as she bent down a bit to look at the woman in the car.

"Hello, (Y/n). Are you sure you don't want me to drive you home?" May had already asked five times in the last twenty minutes over text with Peter (annoying MJ to no end during practice). 

(Y/n)'s smile widened a bit and she nodded. "I'm sure. I _want_ to walk home. Feels like I haven't done it alone in a while, and I want to _make sure_ I'm familiar with this city if I'm gonna commit to protecting it." There was a pause before she added for effect, "Thanks though, May."

May smiled softly at her and nodded. (Y/n) backed up as Peter threw open the passenger door and slipped into the seat. 

"See ya' tomorrow, (Y/n)," Peter said, grinning up at her. May gave one more wave before driving off. (Y/n) felt her phone ding a moment later.

**3:19 pm**

**_YeeterMyGoodPeter_ _\- or maybe on a patrol tonite_ **

**_YeeterMyGood_ _Peter \- ;)_ **

**_YeeterMyGood_ _Peter \- ..._ **

**_YeeterMyGood_ _Peter \- that sounded vaguely sexual_ **

**_YeeterMyGood_ _Peter \- sry_ **

(Y/n) snorted and felt her spirits lift a bit as she began to walk. Things were looking up.

As she moved through the city, (Y/n) thought for a bit about how much she missed this. All of this.

"Hey, (Y/n)! Haven't seen you around in a while!" 

She turned to two people, Allie and Max, leaning against the wall of an old apartment building. She smiled.

"Hey, yeah, I've just been really busy lately." She added a moment later, "You know, school and stuff."

Max nodded, her choppy dark hair shifting with the movement. "Gotcha."

"Just come visit whenever you can, okay? You're one of the bright parts of this city!" Allie called after her as (Y/n) began to continue on. The girl nodded before turning a corner, the two women disappearing from view.

(Y/n) talked to a few more people in the city, but it suddenly hit her as she was walking just how few people she knew in comparison to the amount there were in the city. She spotted more men, women, and _children_ than she could have ever imagined she would. She wondered why she hadn't noticed them all before now. (Y/n) set her jaw and grit her teeth as she moved past yet another occupied alley, trying not to cry when she spotted three children huddled up within.

This city was shit.

It made her even more determined to fix it.

(Y/n) turned a final corner and crossed the street straight to her apartment building. She walked through the doors, holding her backpack strap tight as the bag brushed against the closing doors behind her and threatened to fall right off of her shoulder.

"Hey there, (Y/n)!"

(Y/n) couldn't resist smiling as her eyes fell on Lob, standing at the front desk, as usual, grinning widely.

"Hey, Lob!" She greeted, giving him a wave. "How're things going?"

Lob looked incredibly happy, which was an odd thing to say, considering the fact that he _always_ looked happy.

(Y/n) blinked. "What happened? You look... happy?"

Lob looked a bit confused, then. "I try to _always_ look happy, (Y/n)."

"Yeah, but... this is a bit... much..."

Lob grinned widely again. "Well, you're right. Something _did_ happen..."

(Y/n) stared at him for a moment before asking, "What?" She smiled in anticipation. "What is it?"

Lob seemed to not be able to hold it in any longer. His smile, if possible, widened even more. "Maria's having a baby!"

There was a silence before (Y/n) squealed. "Holy shit! That's... Holy shit!"

Lob laughed, running a hand through his hair. "That was my reaction, too. Just... try not to swear too much in front of the baby, please."

(Y/n) gasped in mock offense. "Lob! I would never!"

He chuckled. "I know you wouldn't. You're too good for that."

"You flatter me."

"Don't let it go to your head."

"Congrats again, man," (Y/n) said as she moved toward the elevator. "You better let me see the baby when it comes."

"May, (Y/n), just gotta wait until May!"

(Y/n) grinned. "Not that long, then."

"Feels like forever."

She shrugged. "I'm sure it'll go by like _that_."

The doors dinged and opened. She stepped inside and gave a final wave to Lob before they closed.

(Y/n) gripped the small railing near the back as the elevator rumbled up. It was rickety, but she was being over-paranoid. She _knew_ she was. She _knew_ it.

The elevator dinged again and (Y/n) stepped out onto the top floor of the building. She moved toward the side and heard the door unlock as she stepped into view of the camera. (Y/n) chuckled and opened the door.

"Thanks, ALICE," she said as she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

"Anytime, (Y/n)."

As (Y/n) threw her backpack down on top of the table and moved toward the small kitchen area to get a snack, ALICE spoke again, her voice ringing out through the empty apartment.

"You haven't been back in a while, (Y/n)," ALICE stated offhandedly. "Where were you last night?"

(Y/n) shrugged. "Peter's. I stayed the night." She chuckled. "Why? You miss me or something?"

ALICE was silent for a moment. The quiet stretched on for so long that (Y/n) was concerned that her A.I. was experiencing some sort of glitch or something.

Then, suddenly, ALICE's voice appeared, quiet, and wobbly, as if she was unsure of herself but decided to speak anyway.

" _Maybe_."

(Y/n) froze, her hand halfway into the fridge. _What..._

It was times like these that (Y/n) wondered if some of her magic had somehow seeped into ALICE's coding or something. Something to make her more than just a regular A.I. Something to make her... human...

"How was your day?" (Y/n) asked. "Detect any bugs." Her voice was higher than usual as she veered the topic away from its previous position.

"Nothing out of the ordinary," ALICE responded. "All system checks went by without a hitch." There was a pause before ALICE said, "But... you did get an... e-mail."

(Y/n) blinked. "From who?"

"Stark Industries."

She fell quiet before asking, "Can you... Can you read it to me, please?"

"Of course." ALICE paused, probably pulling up the e-mail, before she cleared her (metaphorical) throat, and began to read.

" _To (Y/n) (L/n),_

_"We are writing to you to inform you that your internship is to begin exactly one week from today, on Monday the twenty-fifth of September, 2017. If this is inconvenient for you in any way, please inform us within twenty-four hours before four in the afternoon on that day. If not, please arrive at the newly-renamed Stark Tower at this address at four in the afternoon on that date:"_

ALICE proceded to rattle off the address to Avengers, er, Stark Tower, before finishing off the e-mail by reading off the name of whoever was in charge of interns, as well as the names of Tony Stark and Pepper Potts.

"So... Monday, then?"

"Yes," ALICE confirmed. 

"Do I have anything going on during that time."

"No," ALICE said a moment later. "No, you don't have anything."

"All right, then," (Y/n) said. She let out a small sigh. "This is crazy, Al."

ALICE let out a sound that seemed to be a giggle. "Absolutely bonkers."

"I mean, I just... I can't believe this. At all. In, well, _less than a week_ , I'm gonna be an official intern at Stark Industries." She silently remembered what Tony and Pepper had said a lifetime ago. _There are no high-school interns in Stark Industries. You would be the first_. She wondered, quietly, if that still held true.

This would all be even crazier if it was.

(Y/n) grabbed a half-finished fruit cup that she had brought home from school lunch a few days ago as leftovers. Ripping off the plastic covering, she moved back toward the table and sat down, pulling her backpack onto the floor before sifting through it for her homework. She sighed as she opened her math folder and saw how much extra work she had after missing two days in a row.

And here she was hoping that she could watch a Hamilton Animatic or two before bed.

With a huff, she pulled out the first worksheet and went to work.

}---{

When she woke up, (Y/n) was hit with the sudden realization of what it would mean to be an intern at Stark Industries, _especially_ a high-school one.

She complained to Peter as soon as she sat down beside him three minutes before the first bell rang.

"I just... It's a lot to live up to, you know?" She hissed to him, careful to not let anyone else hear.

"Yeah, I get it, dude," Peter nodded as he took out his homework at the sound of the warning bell ringing through the school. "I remember how I felt when people at S.I. started talking about me being Tony's protege, even if I _wasn't_. It felt like I had to live up to it anyways."

(Y/n) nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, I know." She sighed, taking out her own work that she had managed to finish last night and still get six hours of sleep in. "I just... I don't wanna do something to lose this, either. I'm excited for it, and nervous, and honored, don't get me wrong, but now I'll have this internship _on top of_ school, Decathlon, and-" She dropped her voice "- _Supernova_." She went back to her normal volume. "You know?"

Peter nodded. "Yeah."

They continued to talk about it for the next few classes, but then in third hour, they all got paired up randomly, and (Y/n) was forced to split up from her best friend to work with a girl she had literally only talked to twice in her life. _Both_ lives.

"Hey."

(Y/n) glanced up as the girl settled in the desk next to her, the one that Peter usually sat in.

"Hey. You're... Amabella?"

The girl nodded. "That's me."

Amabelle was the silent kind of girl who sat in the back corner of the class and didn't talk. She always seemed to look exactly the same, no matter what day (Y/n) saw her on. She was Asian, with deeply tanned skin and layered black hair that was constantly tied up, today being on the top of her head in a messy bun. She very obviously didn't care about the opinions of those around her as she wore a jean jacket right over a mustard yellow sweatshirt, the ends of the bright shirt coming out from under the jacket. Her black jeans constantly seemed to be splattered with paint near her lap, and, despite the fact that they were supposed to be learning history, she was always painting in the back of the class.

As expected, as soon as she sat down, Amabelle pulled out a small canvas and a palette of oil paints. (Y/n) glanced down at the artwork, observing what looked like a band in a field of flowers.

"Why are you looking at my shit?"

(Y/n) glanced up at her, startled. "What?"

"Why are you looking at my shit?" Amabella repeated.

"I was just..."

"It's a jazz band," she interrupted, ignoring (Y/n)'s attempts to speak. "With dancers. In a sunflower field."

(Y/n) blinked before furrowing her eyebrows. "Why?"

Amabella turned to her and stared for a moment, seeming to stare into her soul before raising her eyebrows and saying, "It's art, dipshit."

(Y/n)'s cheeks heated. "Sorry."

Amabelle shrugged, turning back to her art. "I like jazz dancing. I like sunflowers." 

(Y/n) nodded before looking down at the assignment, then back up at Amabella. "You gonna help?" She asked, nodding to the paper.

"Maybe," Amabella said, not looking up as she mixed two colors together. "Depends on how I'm feeling."

(Y/n) didn't have a response for that, so she looked back at her worksheet and stayed silent.

Surprisingly, (Y/n) couldn't help but feel calmed by Amabelle's presence. The other girl clearly didn't care. She was laid-back, carefree, and it was strangely... nice.

Then, there was a sudden shriek from the front of the room.

All eyes turned to the sound.

"What happened?" The teacher asked, standing up from his desk. "What's going on?"

"There's a _spider!_ "

All hell broke loose. (Y/n) stood in the fray as Amabelle literally stood up and bolted from the room. She must _hate_ spiders.

What was funnier to her, though, was Peter standing off to the side, looking like he was having a heart attack. Oh, that was going to be a good topic of conversation later.

There was a span of five minutes as people literally _stood on desks_ to escape the stupid arachnid. Peter looked halfway ready to jump on the wall and reveal his secret, just to try and escape the spider that he designed his whole theme after.

Finally, someone trapped the spider in a cup and went off to let it outside.

Amabella made her way back in another ten minutes later. She looked a bit rattled, still, but was, overall, all right.

"You good?" (Y/n) couldn't help but ask it as Amabella settled back into her seat next to her, sitting in front of her canvas once more.

There was silence.

"Amabelle?"

"Belle," the girl said suddenly. She smiled softly, not looking at (Y/n). "Call me Belle. _Please_."

(Y/n) nodded, smiling as well. "Belle."

In the future, (Y/n) wouldn't really talk to this girl that much again, but, for now, it was nice to have her for a bit. She was a calming presence after an insane last few days. Something unconnected from the rest of her life completely.

It was nice, for that half-hour that they were partners, a time that they barely got any actual work done.

Not productive in any way...

But nice...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> May: yea u r my child
> 
> (Y/n): thx
> 
> MJ: i just wanna draw and do biochem but my parents like naw
> 
> Ned: i feel u bro
> 
> (Y/n) and Peter: hehehehehe *awkward laughter*
> 
> ALICE: i am a robot
> 
> (Y/n): lol no u not i mea yes u r this is confusing
> 
> (Y/n): ooh internship
> 
> (Y/n): thats gonna be a lot of work
> 
> Amabelle: i like painting and sunflowers and i hate spiders
> 
> Peter: i hate spiders too
> 
> (Y/n): o im gonna tease you later bro


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Spider-Man and Supernova begin to reach out, and (Y/n) sees a familiar face from long ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a reference in here that I was quite proud of, honestly.
> 
> This is the longest chapter for this story I've ever written, clocking it at about 6.5 thousand words.
> 
> I hope it was worth it.
> 
> Enjoy!

That afternoon, after Decathlon practice had drawn to a close, Peter turned to (Y/n).

“So, _someone_ didn’t show up for patrol yesterday.”

(Y/n) nodded, giving a sheepish grin. “Yeah, I was a bit… overwhelmed by the extra math work, I guess. Lost track of time.”

Peter laughed. “Uh, I was just guessing. I got overwhelmed too. Didn’t go out last night, either.”

“Oh.” (Y/n)’s face heated as she lightly hit him in the shoulder. “You nerd.”

Peter grinned widely, swerving to avoid her hits. “Sorry, sorry.”

(Y/n) stopped going after him and crossed her arms. “No, you’re not.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

(Y/n) fell back into step beside her friend a moment later. “So… What’s up?”

“You wanna go on patrol today? You know, your first official patrol?” Peter said, his smile widening a bit. (Y/n) opened her mouth to speak but Peter seemed to read her mind and waved her off. “Don’t worry about homework. You’re smarter than me, and I always finish it.” At her glare, he relented. “Well, _almost_ always.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” (Y/n) said. After a beat, she turned to him with a gaping mouth. “Wait a second!” She jabbed a finger at his chest. “I’m not _smarter_ than you!”

Peter shrugged. “Okay, sure, then you’re faster. You finish most of your work before me, you know? You can’t argue that.”

(Y/n) stared at him for a long moment before sighing. “Fine, fine.” She glared at him for a second. “But don’t _ever_ say that I’m _smarter_ than you, cause that’s _not true_.”

“Okay, fine, whatever.”

(Y/n) gave him a blinding smile. “Good.”

The two made their way out of the school and into the city. (Y/n) pulled her phone out and furrowed her eyebrows at whatever she was reading on the screen. Peter noticed her expression and leaned over to look at the phone screen. “What is it?” His friend turned it away from him before he could see. “Come on, I wanna see!”

“Come on, Spider-Boy, let’s go sit down for a sec.” Peter followed (Y/n) as she led him to one of the benches lining the courtyard of the school.

“What is it?” Peter asked. (Y/n) pulled out her phone as they sat down and flicked through it before tapping the screen one more time and turning it to her friend. Peter looked down at the article she was showing him and read.

** The ‘Menaces of Queens’ Strike Again, and This Time, It’s Worse! **

**_“After the vigilantes ‘Spider-Man’ and ‘Supernova’ that call themselves heroes tore through a neighborhood in the suburbs of New York City, terrorizing men, women, and children alike, we thought that it couldn’t get much worse._ **

**_“We were wrong._ **

**_“Just a few days ago, Spider-Man and Supernova were seen taking down a plane carrying precious cargo that belonged to none other than Tony Stark and the Avengers themselves! While the official story is that they did it to stop the villain Adrian Toomes, also known as Vulture, from stealing things from this jet, we can’t help but wonder if this is all just a cover-up for something bigger-”_ **

“Yeah, all right, I call bullshit,” Peter said, handing the phone back to (Y/n) instead of reading any more. “Menaces? Really? I would expect this from someone like the people at the Daily Bugle, maybe, but this is, what, Buzzfeed?”

“They do all sorts of crazy shit over there,” (Y/n) shrugged. “Probably just a desperate writer. But it got me thinking…”

“What?” Peter asked nudging her to get her to go on.

“What if we made a YouTube channel?”

Peter blinked before comically cocking his head to the side. “What?”

“We wouldn’t have to post all the time, obviously, but maybe having a social media account to, you know, reach out to the people with would be good for us.” Peter sighed.

“I don’t know,” he said, wringing his hands together. 

“Well, think about it. We’re always gonna be the ones thrown under the bus because we don’t have a way to connect to people. The Avengers, well, their identities are common knowledge, first off, so they already seem more open to the rest of the world because people can put a normal face to the hero. We don’t have that. Also, the Avengers can talk to the press, they can have press meetings, answer questions and shit. We can’t do this. Plus, none of the other heroes have social media! We can be the first!”

“What would we even post?”

“Come on, Peter,” (Y/n) said, giving him a big smile as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Your brain and my brain? We can come up with _something_.” She drew away from him. “We could start today, on patrol! Just something like-” She waved her hands dramatically- “‘The First Ever Patrol of Supernova, featuring Spider-Man.’” She grinned at him. “Title subject to change.”

Peter stared at her for a long moment before sighing and giving her a smile. “Fine, fine, I’ll admit, it sounds cool. I’ve always wanted to have a YouTube channel, anyway.”

“Me too, my dude.”

They stood up and made their way back into the city. Finally, they found two alleys with just three buildings between them. (Y/n) did a quick sweep of both of them before giving the all-clear to her friend. She ducked into one of them and Peter moved into the other.

Then began the awkward few minutes of Peter standing almost completely naked in an alley as he struggled into his suit, glancing out at the alley every other moment to ensure no one could see. He finally got the suit on and was pulling his mask out of his bag when his spidey-sense tingled, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. Peter whirled around, his mask in his hands, to the entrance of the alley, starting a bit when (Y/n), fully transformed and in her ‘battle outfit’ suddenly touched down in front of him, the remnants of purple magic left on her fingertips.

“You look like you just saw a ghost.”

Peter shook his head. “You just… You scared me. That’s all.”

(Y/n) furrowed her eyebrows. “What’s the point of having a spidey-sense if you still get surprised?”

Peter shrugged. “To better prepare me?”

She snorted. “How’d that work out for you?”

“... Shut up.”

Peter slipped his mask on over his face before pressing the spider on the center of his chest.

“Good afternoon, Peter. How are you today?”

Peter smiled. “I’m great, Karen. Glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too.”

(Y/n) took out her phone and Peter recognized it as her secondary one. She had been forced to use it for a few days while she fixed her normal one after they fell into the lake (as in were thrown in by Toomes).

“What’s that for?”

“Oh, you know…” She wiggled the device in her hand and finished her statement with so little enthusiasm it probably shouldn’t even be possible. “Recording…”

Peter blinked before nodding. “You sure you don’t just wanna use my phone? It might have a better camera?”

(Y/n) stared at Peter with zero amusement in her eyes. “Spidey, this phone is utterly useless _besides_ its camera.” She smiled down at the phone in her hands with pride. “I fixed it up myself.”

Peter nodded. “All right, I believe you.”

He turned to the wall beside him and quickly crawled up it. There was a flash of purple below him and his friend touched down on the roof as split-second after Peter reached the top. He ripped off his mask before turning to her.

“Do you think we could get Ned and MJ to help us?” Peter asked.

“What d’you mean?”

“Well, you know, Ned’s good with computers and stuff, and MJ’s got an artistic eye. They could probably help us with this whole YouTube channel thing, you know?”

(Y/n) nodded, giving him a grin. “I’m sure Ned will say yes before we even ask the question.”

Peter nodded. “MJ’ll probably go along with it too, she’s cool.”

“Yeah. Yeah, all right.”

Peter pulled his mask back on as (Y/n) fiddled with the phone in her hands.

“You ready?” 

(Y/n) let out a breath before nodding.

“All right, how is this gonna work?”

They ended up choosing one of the bigger streets to start on. Every time another street cut through it, Peter would go left and (Y/n) would go right. They’d go through that street before meeting back up in the middle again to continue on. Peter had Karen put in (Y/n)’s phone number under the name ‘Nova’ in case she ever called him with it.

They stood on the end of the first main street they were going off of, perched on a roof, looking out at the cars.

“All right, we wanna start this?” (Y/n) asked, her voice breaking through the sounds of the city.

Peter sighed before nodding. “Yeah.”

}---{

(Y/n) held the phone in her hand, the camera looking out at the traffic, before clicking ‘record’.

“Uh, hey, people of Earth,” (Y/n) started. She never realized how weird this would be. 

“But what if people from space watch this?” Peter’s voice asked. (Y/n) turned the camera to him.

“Okay, fine, hey, people of Earth and space and maybe other dimensions too, I’m Supernova and this idiot is Spider-Boy.” She took in a breath. “There, does that satisfy you?”

Peter nodded. A moment later, the eyes in his mask widened. “Hey! It’s Spider- _Man_.”

She shrugged. “Coulda fooled me.”

Peter gasped. “Um, _rude_.”

(Y/n) reached forward, her hand now in the view of the camera as she placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. “Come on, you know you love me.”

Peter sighed after a moment and brushed her hand away. “Shut up.” He reached forward and took the phone from her. “Hey, you were right. You _did_ fix this camera up good.”

(Y/n) grinned, probably now fully in view of the camera and anyone who might be watching. “Never doubt me again, young padawan.”

Peter bowed, the camera bowing with him. “I won’t, wise master.”

There was a moment of silence before (Y/n) asked. “Weren’t we supposed to be doing something?”

There was a beat and then Peter exclaimed, “Patrol!”

“Oh, shit, yeah!” (Y/n) straightened herself and waved at the camera. “Hi, people.” She tapped her chin. “Wait, we already said hi, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, uh, well, I’m Supernova, that’s Spider-Man.” Peter put his hand in the view of the camera and waved to it. “I guess you probably already know that though… Anyway! Um, today is my first _official_ patrol with Spidey-Boy here, and so we thought ‘why not record it, cause, like, we don’t have press meetings like other heroes do, so why not?’”

“Wait, are we heroes?” Peter asked after she was done.

(Y/n) thought for a moment before shrugging. “Sure. Sounds good to me.” Peter handed the camera back to her.

“So, uh, Nova thought it’d be fun if we made a YouTube channel. We won’t post all that often, but it’ll be there.” He turned to her. “Do we have a name for it yet?”

(Y/n) shook her head.

“We should get on that.”

“What about…” (Y/n) thought for a moment. “The Adventures of Spider-Man and Supernova.”

Peter shook his head. “Too long. Sounds like one of those channels in it for the money.”

(Y/n) nodded. “Okay.”

“Uh…” Peter stared off into the distance as he dragged the word out. “SpiderNova? Or even Spi _dey_ Nova?”

(Y/n) shook her head. “Sounds too much like a ship name.” She looked off into the city before gasping. “I got it!”

“What?”

“Spider-Space!”

“... What?”

“You know, like Cyber-Space, but Spider-Space!” (Y/n) exclaimed, immensely proud of her idea. “Cause, you know, the internet and shit. And like, Spider for you, Space for me.”

“Seems nerdy…” Peter sounded a bit unconvinced. (Y/n) rolled her eyes at his reasoning.

“Oh, shut up. Like _you_ wouldn’t name your own YouTube channel ‘The Web’ or something like that.”

Peter sighed before shrugging, the camera moving a bit as he did. “Guilty as charged. Er, probably.”

(Y/n) snorted. “So… Spider-Space?”

“Sure, sure, cool with me,” Peter said.

(Y/n) took the camera back. “All right, for real this time, first patrol, here we go.”

She turned to Peter and he gave her a nod. (Y/n) took a deep breath and gathered up her energy. She turned the camera on Peter so it could watch him as he was swinging at first. 

“Three, two, one, go!”

(Y/n) jumped off at the same time as Peter. She watched as he released a web, training the camera on him before she activated her powers, purple energy flying from her free hand and her feet as she moved through the air. She clicked the button to stop the recording a moment later.

“See ya, Nova!” Peter called, disappearing down the left side of the first crossing street they neared. 

(Y/n) gave him a wave before boosting her powers and veering to the right.

}---{

A few hours later, as the sun was beginning to set, the two sat in (Y/n)’s apartment on the floor, her laptop open in front of them. They had Peter’s suit hooked up to it as well as (Y/n)’s phone to mesh all the clips together.

“Okay, that’s all the clips,” (Y/n) said as the last ones loaded in.

“And I just finished making us a new e-mail,” Peter said. (Y/n) glanced at the screen of his phone. 

“ALICE, can you store the e-mail and password in your databanks?”

“Of course.”

Peter read off both of them and a moment later ALICE confirmed that they were stored.

“Cool,” Peter said.

“All right, I got Karen’s software to blur all the faces except for ours, too,” (Y/n) said a moment later.

“Nice.”

Both of them started when Peter’s phone started to ring.

“Who is it? May?” (Y/n) asked, leaning over to look.

“No, Ned.”

Peter answered it and put the phone on speaker. “Hey, dude.”

“Hey, Peter.”

“Hey, Ned,” (Y/n) said before any conversation started.

“Oh, hey, (Y/n)!”

“What d’you need, dude?” Peter asked.

“Do I have to need something to call one of my best friends in the whole world?” Ned asked. One could see him blinking innocently through their mind’s eye.

“Yes.”

“Oh, fine, whatever, dude,” Ned said, seeming a bit surprised by Peter’s bluntness. “Uh, it’s the Spanish homework. My mom’s near fluent, so she’s checking it over, but she says it’s wrong and won’t tell me why because learning or some shit. Google Translate did nothing for me and can you help me, dude?”

Peter nodded before realizing Ned couldn’t see the gesture through the phone and saying, “Yeah, dude, just send me a picture.”

“Thanks, man,” Ned said, breathing a sigh of relief.

A moment passed before the picture came in. Peter scanned it before saying, “Ned, you put the DOP between two verbs instead of before them or stuck on the end.”

Ned groaned. “Stupid Google Translate,” he muttered. There was the sound of paper moving and then the scratching of a pencil before Ned’s voice came through again. “Thanks, dude.”

“Anytime.”

Ned probably was going to hang up when (Y/n) exclaimed, “Wait!”

There was a moment of silence before Ned asked, “Yeah?”

“Uh, Peter and I, er, we’re making a, um, YouTube channel for, well, for _us_ , but as, you know, Spider-Man and Supernova, and so, er, we were wondering if you would, like, edit our videos for us? Cause you’re good with computers.” Before Ned could respond, (Y/n) added, “We wouldn’t post that often, it’s just that we think you’d be so good at it and shit and-”

“Dude,” Ned said, interrupting her, and (Y/n) had never heard her friend sound so touched. “I’d be so honored to do this, and be a part of your journey, and-”

“Okay, thanks, Ned,” Peter said before the other boy could go off on a rant about what an ‘honor’ it would be to edit their video. “We’ll e-mail it to you. We just made a new one for this channel and stuff so, uh, well, I’m sure you’ll know it when you see it.”

“Cool,” Ned said. “This is _so_ cool.”

“We’re gonna see if MJ’ll help, too,” (Y/n) butted in. “She’s, like, artistic and shit.”

“Yeah, she’d be good,” Ned said. “Oh, I got it!” There was a beat of silence before Ned asked, “... What am I doing?”

“Like… just shorten it down and stuff,” Peter said. “Make transitions look good, stuff like that. We have the original, uncut version saved, so if MJ doesn’t give your edited version the all good, we can start over.”

“Okay, cool.” Ned seemed to type a few things as the sound of the pressing of keys came through before he said, “Okay, I’m gonna do this. Shouldn’t take too long. Talk to you guys later.”

“Bye, Ned,” they said in unison.

“Bye.”

(Y/n) grabbed her phone and clicked through her contacts before selecting MJ’s name.

“You ready to face the ultimate challenge: Getting MJ to agree to something?” (Y/n) asked, glancing at her friend.

Peter seemed to steel himself before nodding. “Let’s do this.”

(Y/n) pressed on the ‘call’ button a moment later.

}---{

MJ had agreed without any arguing, actually. 

“Once you reveal your identities, though, I want credit,” MJ said.

“Sounds fair,” (Y/n) said when Peter gave a shrug and then a nod.

“Cool. Send me the video when the other loser is done editing and I’ll give you the go-ahead and stuff.”

“God, MJ, you’re the best,” Peter breathed out.

“I know.” The phone clicked off a moment later.

After about an hour, Ned sent the video to them and they forwarded it to MJ who sent it back not ten minutes later with a list of things to change.

It was like that for almost three more hours (almost midnight) before MJ was satisfied.

“May wanted me back an hour ago, you know,” Peter said as he emerged from (Y/n)’s bathroom, dressed in his suit, his mask clutched in his hands.

“Yeah, she knew that wasn’t happening,” (Y/n) waved him off. “She just wants you back by midnight.”

“Which is in ten minutes.”

“You’ll be fine.”

Peter sighed, slipping out of her window.

“See you tomorrow, Peter.”

“See ya, (Y/n).”

Peter gave her a final wave before he slipped the mask on, shot a web, and disappeared into the night. (Y/n) got up and slid the window closed a moment later, locking it as soon as it was in place.

“Did you finish your homework?” ALICE asked, her voice ringing through the house as (Y/n) moved to the bathroom to brush her teeth.

“Yep.”

“Oh, well… good.” (Y/n)’s answer to that question was normally ‘no’, so it made sense that ALICE was surprised.

That didn’t make it any less funny, though.

}---{

The next day was Thursday or, as (Y/n) liked to call it, ‘The day before Friday’.

“Ned, MJ, can you guys come to Peter’s with us after school today?” (Y/n) asked as they all filed into the room for Decathlon.

MJ shrugged. “My parents don’t care what I do after school as long as I tell them beforehand.”

“My mom’s fine if it’s Peter,” Ned said.

“Cool, so, uh, can you ask them?” Peter asked. “I’m pretty sure (Y/n)’s cooking.”

MJ raised an eyebrow. “(Y/n)’s cooking. You know what, screw it, I don’t care what my parents say, I’m going anyways.”

Ned texted his mother and, as he did, he asked, “What’re you cooking?”

“Pasta.”

“I’m there.” Ned sent the message and placed the phone on the table in front of him.

His phone dinged the moment he set it down. Ned picked it back up and smiled. “And now my mom says so too.”

Decathlon practice came and went and two hours later they were all sitting in the main room of Peter and May’s apartment, gathered around MJ as she fiddled on (Y/n)’s laptop.

“Yo, yo, yo, my bromeos,” (Y/n) called from the kitchen. “What do you want on your stuff?”

“I will take the marinara sauce and parmesan cheese,” MJ responded from her spot in front of the laptop.

“Oh, oh, can I have some on mine, too!”

“Me three!”

“All right, I get it, I get it, everyone wants my sauce because I’m just _that good_ of a cook,” (Y/n) said. She emerged from the kitchen a moment later with her hands empty (other than silverware in her left). However, four plates floated in the air around her. She moved her hand forward and the plates floated down to each person before the last one landed in her hand.

“Very impressive, MJ said as she accepted a fork from her friend.

“Yeah, you’re getting better and better,” Ned nodded as he took one as well.

Peter took the last fork and took a bite immediately. When he had swallowed, he added, “At both cooking _and_ magic.”

(Y/n) laughed. “Thanks.”

Ned eyed Peter and (Y/n)’s plates and asked, “Hey, why do you guys have like almost double what we have?”

MJ slapped him on the shoulder. “They have boosted metabolisms, dumbass.” 

Peter furrowed his eyebrows. “Uh… _I_ have a boosted metabolism, yeah, but (Y/n) doesn’t…”

MJ blinked. “Okay, _you’re_ a dumbass too, apparently, Parker.” She gestured at (Y/n). “As soon as (Y/n) told us who she was, I knew that she _had_ to have a boosted metabolism. She eats, like, her _whole_ lunch, and is _always_ still hungry.”

Peter turned to (Y/n) with wide eyes. “Wait… really?”

(Y/n) bit her lip before nodding. “Well… yeah…”

Peter threw himself back and sank into the couch cushions, shielding his face with his hands. “I’m _such_ an idiot!”

MJ nodded solemnly. “That is true.”

Peter sat up and glared at her before turning said glare onto (Y/n). “No more arguing about second servings, then.”

(Y/n) scoffed. “What are you gonna do to stop me?”

“I’ll tell _May_.”

(Y/n) gasped. “You _wouldn’t_.”

Peter grinned evilly. “Oh, I _will_ … And then she will _forever_ feel guilty over not feeding you enough in the past for your metabolism, and that will be on _you_.”

(Y/n) thought for a long moment before sighing. “ _Fine_ , I won’t argue about extra food anymore, happy?”

Peter smirked, looking a bit smug. “Yep.”

“If you two shitheads are done talking, I’m done.”

The other three all gathered around MJ again to look on the screen.

Currently, the background of the channel was just a weaving pattern of purple and white lines on a black background. MJ clicked on the editing program (Y/n) had downloaded earlier that was open in another window.

“Here’s the cover image.”

It was one of the last shots that (Y/n) had taken with her phone while they were on patrol the day before. It was of Peter and (Y/n), both either in a suit or transformed, respectively. It was just a random frame from when they had jumped off of a building at the same time while (Y/n)’s camera had been in selfie mode as they had sat on the roof. The picture showed (Y/n) and Peter as well as the building and the sky behind them. (Y/n) hair was flapping above her from the wind, a big smile on her face. The eyes in Peter’s mask were wide and you could see the laughter through the fabric. (Y/n)’s eyes were closed as she seemed to laugh too, and wisps of purple magic filled the air behind her.

“That’s probably the best screenshot you could have chosen, MJ,” Ned said as they all looked at the picture. “You guys look like you were having the time of your lives.”

“We were,” Peter said. (Y/n) nodded in agreement at his words.

“All right, well, we can post it now, if you want?” MJ said, glancing at the two others. “It’ll take a while to upload, too, so we can, I don’t know, do whatever shit you nerds do or whatever.”

“Yeah, that sounds good.”

Ned took the laptop from MJ and clicked through a few things. After a minute or two, he set it back down on the coffee table, a loading bar now on the screen. 1% processed… 2% processed… This was going to take a while.

}---{

The video was uploaded that Thursday night. Nothing happened. The week turned into the weekend and, still, nothing.

Then, on Monday morning, (Y/n) woke up to ALICE’s alarm. As she moved through her morning routine, ALICE’s voice rang out through the apartment.

“(Y/n)?” ALICE asked.

(Y/n) pulled the granola bar she was about to bite into away from her face. “Yeah?”

“I’d advise that you check on your YouTube video.”

(Y/n) lit up. “Really? What are the stats on it?”

“Well, currently, 4.6 million views and counting, 129k likes, 3.1 dislikes, and 74k comments.”

(Y/n)’s eyes widened. It wasn’t as big as the video that other person had posted all that time ago of her stopping the truck, but, for their first video no less, this was _insane_.

“Is that all, ALICE?”

“It would probably also be in your best interests to wear something professional or nerdy today.”

(Y/n) furrowed her eyebrows. “Why?”

“You _do_ start your internship today,” ALICE said.

(Y/n)’s eyes widened. “I _do?_ ”

ALICE seemed to laugh (or at least it sounded similar to that). “Yes, you do.”

“What time?”

“Four.”

“Okay, okay,” (Y/n) said. She let out a breath. “Can you send me a text at like, I don’t know, three-ish to remind me?”

“Of course.”

(Y/n) continued to chew on the granola bar as she moved into her bedroom and sorted through her clothes.

“ _Come on, come on, there’s gotta be_ something _professional in here_ …” She muttered as she moved another old shirt aside. “ _I’ve got the nerd part down, obviously_.”

Eventually, (Y/n) pulled out the nicest shirt she owned that also happened to be a _bit_ nerdy. It was a cream-colored shirt with sleeves that cut off halfway down her forearm. It was an off-the-shoulder one, though only on the left side. A deeper color, kind of like coffee mixed with milk, was at the bottom, and the gradient went up slowly through the form of bubbles- as if it were some sort of potion or chemical.

“What about this?”

“Hmm…” ALICE seemed to think as (Y/n) held the shirt up in view of ALICE’s camera in her room. “Professional with a nerdy undertone. I do believe that it should go over just fine. However, you _should_ wear a jacket over it at school. Dress code and all that.”

(Y/n) nodded. She pulled on the shirt as well a pair of dark blue jeans before moving out of her bedroom, down the hall, and into the main room of the apartment where her backpack sat open on the little folding table she used for a dining table.

(Y/n) dug through it, under her books, until she reached where she stuffed her dress and leather jacket. She pulled the jacket out before pushing her books back in correctly and zipping up her bag. (Y/n) pulled her jacket on before sitting down and pulling on her boots. 

“All right, Al. Next I see you, I’ll either be an intern for Stark Industries, or I’ll be fired, er, whatever happens to interns, I don’t really know, because I failed.”

“ _Do_ be more optimistic, (Y/n),” ALICE scolded. “You’re going to be _fine_.”

“How do _you_ know that?” (Y/n) asked as she slid on her backpack.

“Well, you made _me_ , didn’t you?”

(Y/n) was quiet for a moment before sighing and nodding in defeat. “Yeah, well, you got me there.”

“All right, I’ll see you later, then, (Y/n),” ALICE said. “Off to school with you, now. You’ll be late.”

(Y/n) nodded and tossed a goodbye over her shoulder before disappearing out the door. She heard it lock behind her as soon as she closed the door. (Y/n) made her way to the elevator and was out on the streets a few minutes later.

She made her way through the city and finally made it to the school about three minutes before the first bell rang.

She felt her phone ding in her back pocket where it sat as she walked. She pulled it out to see Peter’s name.

**7:07 am**

**YeeterMyGoodPeter \- _yo yo yo where r u my bromeo_**

**SpaceSpaceSeverusSpace \- _just got here chill_**

(Y/n) slipped her phone away again and moved toward the first stairwell near the doors as she walked in. She went up the steps two at a time and emerged on the second floor just as the warning bell dinged through the halls.

She made it into her class just as the bells went another time through the school.

}---{

“Did you see the video?” (Y/n) asked as she and Peter slid into their seats at the lunch table across from Ned and MJ.

“You mean the one of Spider-Man and Supernova?” MJ asked, a glint in her eye as she spoke.

Peter nodded. “Yeah, can you believe it hit 4 million views?”

“5 million, actually,” Ned said, pulling out his phone and showing the YouTube app open to the video. Sure enough, it had passed the 5 million mark by now.

“Holy shit,” (Y/n) breathed out, taking the phone from her friend to look at it. All the numbers had gone up (including the dislikes, of course). She passed it to Peter who looked over it with sparkling eyes.

“In other news,” (Y/n) said as Peter passed the phone back to Ned across the table, “I start my internship today.”

The other three fell silent before Peter grinned. “Dude, _seriously?_ ”

(Y/n) nodded, a smile appearing on her lips as well. “Yep. Four in the afternoon, Stark Tower.”

“Dude, I can’t believe this is really happening right now,” Ned said, his own grin wider than either of the other two’s. “I have two friends, who are _superheroes_ , and one of them knows Tony Stark, and the other one is a _high-school_ intern at _Stark Industries_.” He turned to MJ. “Isn’t this _awesome?_ ”

MJ nodded, cracking a smile as well. “I’ll admit, this shit is pretty cool.”

The bell rang again overhead.

“Off to class, then?” Peter sighed, standing up to throw his trash away before dropping his lunch tray on the pile near the door. (Y/n) did the same after him.

}---{

“Are you ready?”

(Y/n) bit her lip at her friend’s question as they walked out of Decathlon. “Yes? No? I don’t know, Peter. I’m terrified, that’s for sure.” She looked to her friend with wide eyes. “What if I have to talk to _Tony Stark?_ Or _Pepper Potts?_ ”

Peter shrugged, giving her a nervous smile. “Well, you already met them before and they liked you.”

(Y/n) sat down. “This is different. This isn’t Tony, a guy picking up my friend Peter who happens to have a lot of money, this is _Tony Stark_ , billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, _Iron Man_. This isn’t Pepper, Tony’s fiance who’s nice and easy to connect with, this is _Pepper Potts_ , CEO of Stark Industries, Iron Man’s fiance, one of the most powerful people in the world.”

“Well, they liked you before, right? So... they’ll _have_ to like you again!”

“Peter, you just don’t get it, do you? You _softened_ them up last time. How long did it take for them to like you last time? To like _you_ , I mean.”

Peter sighed. “Months.”

“And you already had the benefit of knowing Mr. Stark _beforehand_ , from Spider-Man and all that shit. I _don’t_ have that.”

“Well…” Peter thought for a moment before smiling. “Maybe you won’t even _have_ to worry about any of that! You’re just an intern, _granted the first_ real _high-school one,_ but an intern nonetheless. You probably won’t even have to meet them!”

(Y/n) felt her nerves settled a bit and smiled at her friend. “Thanks, Peter. That… made me feel a lot better, actually.”

“No problem, (Y/n).”

(Y/n) peeked into an alley. “All right, this one is good, I think.”

Peter nodded and moved into it. “Thanks.”

“‘Course. I’ll come join you after I’m done if I can.”

Peter waved her off. “Don’t worry if you can’t. We’ll figure it out.”

(Y/n) smiled. “Cool. See ya.”

“Bye.”

(Y/n) left as Peter moved into the alley to change into his suit for patrol around the city. She looked up at Stark Tower looming in the distance, the Avengers logo on the side still in the process of being taken down.

“ _All right, no need to panic, just going to be the first high-school intern in Stark Industries history_ …” She scrunched up her face as she weaved past a hot-dog vendor. “ _All right, that just made it worse…_ ”

About ten minutes passed and (Y/n) looked at her phone as she turned the corner one more time to be on the same street at Stark Tower. Less than a block to go, and less than five minutes, too.

(Y/n) made it to the front doors of S.I. just a few moments later.

She stared up at the doors. They were just normal doors, but they seemed like so much more than that to her. 

She looked upward at the looming building above her. It was so much more menacing up close. Dozens and dozens of floors, seemingly never-ending.

(Y/n) took a deep breath and pushed open the door.

The lobby was different than (Y/n) had expected it to be. There was a wall seeming to divide one half of the floor from the other. There was a front desk directly in front of her and seating on this half of the floor. She looked past to the other side, past the security blocking it off, and saw the side of an elevator. _Oh_ … Okay, that made sense. No one was allowed into the elevators without having gone through security, the wall separating the sides just made sure of that.

(Y/n) bit her lip before walking forward. Wringing her hands, she approached the front desk.

“Uh, hi,” she said in a meek voice ( _too_ meek, if you ask her).

The woman at the desk looked up at her with kind eyes. Okay, that should make this a _bit_ easier. “Hello, honey, did you need something?”

“Er, uh, yeah, I mean, yes please, I, uh-” (Y/n) sighed as the woman seemed to get more confused. The girl glanced at the nametag pinned to the woman’s chest. Georgia. Nice to have a name for her face, at least. 

“My name is (Y/n) (L/n),” (Y/n) said. “I’m, uh, well, I’m here because I’m starting an internship, I guess, and today’s my first day, and, well, I don’t know where to go…”

(Y/n) realized how fabricated her story sounded as she went on. Some little high-school kid to came in with no idea what she was doing, claiming she had an internship.

“Could you spell your name, please?” Georgia asked, turning to her computer and pulling on a pair of glasses.

“Oh, uh, sure.” (Y/n) spelled out her name. It felt weird on her tongue. She wondered if she had spelled it wrong.

Georgia clicked a few things before nodding, looking a bit surprised as she did. “All right, well, that’s all set, I guess.”

“So, uh, what should I…?”

“One moment.”

Georgia typed in a few things and clicked a button before leaning back in her chair and locking eyes with (Y/n) again. “You can go ahead and take a seat, honey. Someone’ll be down to fetch you soon.”

(Y/n) nodded, trying to swallow the lump in her throat. “Thanks, er, thank you, ma’am.”

Georgia gave her a wide smile. “No problem, honey. I’ll see you around.”

(Y/n) nodded. “See you.” She turned and made her way back to the chairs of the lobby.

A few minutes passed uneventfully before (Y/n) realized that no one was coming down anytime soon.

“I’m sorry, honey, she’s just very busy, is all,” Georgia called to (Y/n) from the front desk as the woman seemed to also realize how long she had been waiting already.

“It’s all right,” (Y/n) replied, forcing up a smile. “Thanks.”

Georgia nodded and turned back to her desk as the phone rang. A few more minutes passed before Georgia called over again, “If you’d like, you could run through security real quick? Just so you don’t have to do it later.”

(Y/n) took in a breath and nodded. “All right. I can do that.”

The man who checked her bag was all business, so (Y/n) didn’t dare talk to him except to thank him after he gave her the all-clear to go sit back down after he had gone through her things and she had walked through the x-ray machine.

(Y/n) settled back down into a chair again and turned to her bag. Well, might as well get some homework done while she waited, right?

She breezed through her English and Chemistry homework rather quickly before moving onto her math homework. They had a test on Wednesday, their first real big one of the year, and so Mrs. Winn had given them a large review packet, due on the day of the test. No better time to get it done than now, right?

(Y/n) barely processed the murmurs that broke out when she was almost halfway through the packet, nor the person who sat across from her. She glanced up at the bottom of their outfit, saw high-heels and the bottom of a pencil skirt, and assumed that it was a woman there for a meeting. The teen turned her attention back to her homework.

She moved through the problems deftly. About ten more minutes passed before she shoved her work paper along with the packet into her math folder in her bag, tucked away her calculator and pencil too, and closed up the backpack altogether. 

That was when (Y/n) heard the stifled laughter.

She looked up to see the woman across from her covering her mouth, a smile creeping past her hands. (Y/n) froze as the woman spoke.

“Well, you are _quite_ the worker, aren’t you?” Pepper Potts said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Y/n): ok so some people dont like us
> 
> Peter: i call bullshit
> 
> (Y/n): lets make a youtube channel
> 
> Peter: no
> 
> Peter: yes
> 
> (Y/n) and Peter: *constantly forget they're supposed to be making a video and just banter*
> 
> Ned: *fangirls*
> 
> Video: *takes off b/c it's about two superheroes what did you expect*
> 
> Peter and (Y/n): omigod i never could have forseen this
> 
> (Y/n): it's time to internship! *has no idea what she's doing and tbh never related more*
> 
> Georgia: i am a blessing
> 
> (Y/n): time to smarting the homeowrk
> 
> Pepper: yo
> 
> Chapter: *is 6.5 thousand words because author didn't want it to just be about this new youtube channel they're making and wanted to get a start into the next major story arc so here we are longest chapter ever baby lets go*
> 
> Author: *is on vacation and still writes the longest chapter ever AND updates on time my god what a goddess*
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here.
> 
> Yes, I am on vacation. Oh well.
> 
> Yes, this is the longest chapter ever in this story, by 1.5-2 thousand words. I just wanted to get to the next arc rather than drag this sort-of-filler over another chapter.
> 
> So, the YouTube channel thing. I've been planning that one for a while.
> 
> At first, it was just a fun idea to do. Like 'what if peter and (y/n) had a youtube channel'. But then I thought further into it, and I realized that this could be the best way for two young vigilante heroes who don't get a lot of press attention to be able to get in the good graces of the people who aren't there to see their good deeds.
> 
> And it's also a good way to make the world ship them, yas queen.
> 
> So, we're finally gonna meet Pepper. For real.
> 
> When I was first writing this story, I was, well, I didn't see it as anything more than what it was. I didn't have this big plan that I do now. 
> 
> Now, though, I know for sure where I'm going with this.
> 
> When I look back, one of the biggest reasons I want to edit the first maybe 10-15 chapters is, besides the fact that it would help the writing style be more consistent over the whole story. I've already done chapters 1-4, for those of you who don't know, but I can't wait to do the other ones.
> 
> I want to make both Tony and Pepper have better, more canon-compliant characters. Their general behavior can't change, but their mannerisms, their specific dialogue, has to. 
> 
> I explained a bit, through (Y/n) and Peter's dialogue this chapter, that Tony and Pepper are going to be much harder to get close to this time around. Sure, before it was easy, but both of them were already softened by Peter, and it was furthered by his enthusiasm for his friend. That's, well, it's not really there this time, so it's going to be much more of a journey for (Y/n) to get to the end relationship with Tony and Pepper that she's going to have.
> 
> It's gonna be a bumpy, rocky, emotional ride or rollercoaster or whatever, you get it, so hang on tight, everyone!
> 
> (also, yes, the name for (y/n) in the texts was a potter puppet pals reference. you're welcome).
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I don't know if I'll ever have it in me to write this much in one go again.
> 
> Bye, bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which (Y/n) freaks out a bit and gets to learn about how Stark Industries works.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm hosting another Fan-Art Contest, but it's the first one since I started posting this story on this site, so it's kinda the first one for you guys, I guess.
> 
> Basically, you design a supersuit for (Y/n).
> 
> The details and guidelines and prizes are here:
> 
> [Fan-Art Contest 2](https://www.quotev.com/story/11086638/The-One-Thing-In-Life-I-Can-Control-Peter-Parker-x-Reader/65)
> 
> So, go and do that if you want. It'd be cool. Winner's gonna be used in the story.

(Y/n) felt every muscle inside of her freeze. Every thought running through her head disappeared and was replaced with “ _ Abort Mission! Abort Mission! _ ” repeating in her mind on an endless loop.

Finally (Y/n) managed to get to her feet. “Uh, Miss Potts. It’s a, um, it’s a pleasure to see, er, to  _ meet _ you, er, ma’am...” (Y/n) felt like she was going to die of embarrassment on the spot. Pepper looked up at her with amusement shining in her eyes. 

A moment passed and (Y/n) kept her eyes trained solely on her shoes, which were some of the most interesting things she had ever laid eyes on at that exact moment. 

The longer people looked at her, the more people she saw, and the more constricted her breathing felt. She hadn’t felt this way since before she had met Peter, whenever people looked at her in public. (Y/n), who now had a real handle on her magic, felt it welling up inside of her.

She clenched her fists tightly in a desperate attempt to keep her magic under wraps. She was  _ not _ revealing herself any time soon, especially not in the lobby of Stark Tower.

She blinked at her vision was suddenly green. Flashes of her purple magic appeared in her mind’s eye even if she didn’t want it to. Maybe that was her brain’s way of telling her to _ not let the magic out _ .

Shut up, brain, she  _ knew _ that.

(Y/n)’s breathing quickened. She felt the energy well up inside of her. It was bubbling up, fighting to get out.  _ Let me out, Let me out, LET ME OUT _ -

Then, suddenly, a hand was on her shoulder.

(Y/n) looked up to meet eyes with Pepper again.

She was suddenly aware of the tears welling up in her eyes. She blinked, but her vision was still bright green, the color pulsing around her.

“Why don’t we go somewhere more private?”

(Y/n) swallowed down the lump in her throat and nodded. She ignored the stares of the people in the lobby. Had that number gone up? It must have, there was no  _ way _ there were that many people when she had first sat down and started doing her homework.

Pepper led her through the lobby, and (Y/n) was grateful that Georgia had had her go through security earlier, because, instead of stopping her, the man at the gate just nodded at Pepper and waved them through. (Y/n) didn’t register what was happening until after they were on the side of the floor that was blocked off from the main lobby.

Pepper’s hand rested on (Y/n)’s back, on the spot between her shoulder blades, gently pressing into her skin to guide her along.

(Y/n) processed, very suddenly, actually, that she was shaking.

Pepper said something. Or, maybe she didn’t. But a moment later, one of the elevators in front of them was opening and they stepped inside.

There was a jumble of noise and then they were moving. There were windows in the elevator, but (Y/n) couldn’t find the strength to look up. Her eyes stayed glued to the ground. The floor was an interesting shade of green. She trembled a bit more. It was sort of like the color of leaves in the setting sun, but only the darker, shadowed side. She furrowed her eyebrows. Was that right? It sounded right.

There was a dinging sound that startled (Y/n)’s mind out of a world made only of different shades of green, and into one of at least  _ moving  _ her legs in some sort of manner. 

Her eyes were down, still, counting the tiles. Muted green ones separated by mint-colored lines. Well, she was sure that those colors weren’t  _ actually _ what the tiles were, but with her vision still bright, it sure looked like that.

_ One tile, two tiles, three tiles, four tiles _ …

(Y/n)’s magic was still very much at the surface. 

_ Sixteen tiles, seventeen tiles, eighteen tiles, nineteen tiles... _

Every time she thought it might chill out, the image of one of the people in the lobby staring at her would pop up, or she’d bump shoulders with someone as they walked through the halls, and the energy inside of her would flare up again, and another wave of shakes would overcome her body, and all the progress would be for naught.

_ Thirty-three tiles, thirty-four tiles, thirty-five tiles, thirty-six tiles... _

It might have been hours, it might have been years, or it might have just been five minutes, but then Pepper was stepping in front of (Y/n) and sliding a card, and there was a beeping sound. 

_ Sixty-seven tiles... _

Without the stability of Pepper’s hand on her back, (Y/n) suddenly realized how much she had needed it. She swayed a bit. She felt like she was going to fall. She  _ was _ going to fall.

But then Pepper’s hand was back again. (Y/n) was led into the room that had just been unlocked. Pepper guided her to a chair and moved her hand to press down on (Y/n)’s shoulders. Slowly, (Y/n) lowered herself into the chair, gripping the armrests on either side for the stability that was no longer there. 

(Y/n) kept her eyes on her shoes. She furrowed her eyebrows. Why were they green? She couldn’t remember them being green when she put them on. No, no, she was being silly. Clearly,  _ everything _ was green. If it wasn’t meant to be that way, then why was it?

(Y/n) didn’t realize that a few minutes must have passed until there was a hand on her shoulder again.

“Tea?”

She blinked, and the green was gone.

Instead, there was the blue of Pepper’s eyes, the red of her hair, and the white steam coming up from the mug the woman held in front of her.

“It’s peach. Supposed to be calming.”

(Y/n) swallowed. Her throat was dry. Had it always been this dry? She reached forward and accepted the mug from Pepper.

“Thank you.”

Her voice cracked half-way through the last word. She felt her cheeks heat as Pepper nodded to her and stepped away, moving around the desk that (Y/n) suddenly realized that she was sitting in front of. Pepper sank into the chair across the desk and folded her hands. (Y/n) moved her eyes downward, wondering just how red her face must be, and gripped the mug a bit harder. Her knuckles turned white.

“Honey?”

(Y/n) looked up involuntarily. Pepper raised an eyebrow. 

(Y/n) nodded. “Yes.” A beat. “Please.”

Pepper reached down to a drawer in her desk and pulled out, sure enough, a jar of honey. Pepper passed the jar to her and (Y/n) suddenly realized that there was a spoon in the mug.

She unscrewed the lid. She noted, with amusement, in the back of her mind, the words on the top. ‘Expiration Date: Never’. That was funny.

(Y/n) took the spoon out of the mug and scooped one dollop into the liquid. Not too much, just enough to give it flavor. She screwed the lid back on and quickly passed the jar back to Pepper before looking down at her tea again and swirling the spoon to make the honey seep into the liquid.

She stirred for a few moments before taking the spoon out, making sure it was dry, and placing it on the desk in front of her. She turned her eyes back to the tea as Pepper took the spoon off of the desk and stood up to put it away.

When the steam slowed down, and Pepper sat back down, (Y/n) lifted the mug to her lips and took a careful sip. It was good.

She took another.

Silence reigned supreme as they sat there.

She took another sip.

And another.

And another.

Until nothing was left but a few droplets at the bottom of the mug. The flavor remained in her mouth.

(Y/n) noted that the flaring magic was gone.

_ Thank God… _

“Are you all right?”

(Y/n) looked up, for real this time. Her (e/c) eyes met Pepper’s blue ones and she felt something settle inside of her.

She swallowed again. The lump was back. She nodded slowly, shakily. 

Pepper cracked a smile, though it didn’t look very happy. Maybe it was… sympathetic? Eh, (Y/n) decided not to dwell on it.

“So,” Pepper said, pulling a file that was set off to the side toward her, “You’re (Y/n) (L/n), I take it?”

(Y/n) nodded again. “Yes, that’s me. How do…” She wet her lips as best she could. Her mouth was dry again. “How do you know my name?”

Pepper’s smile turned from sympathetic (or whatever it was) to amused. She opened the file in front of her and turned it to face (Y/n). (Y/n) saw a picture of herself staring up at her from the page, a tentative smile on her face. It was her sophomore year photo, from just about a month ago, when all students got it taken at the end of August.

(Y/n)’s eyes moved up on the page. It looked like a file on  _ her _ .

Huh.

“What…” (Y/n) took in a breath and looked away from the file to meet eyes with Pepper again. “I… I don’t understand.”

Pepper nodded. “Understandable.” The woman pulled the file away again and closed the cover, shielding its contents from view.

There was a pause before Pepper spoke.

“I’m sorry for being so late.”

(Y/n) blinked. “What? Late?”

“Well, you managed to get almost all of your work done before I got there, even if you  _ were _ moving at a pretty fast pace.”

“Wait, you mean…” A revelation washed over (Y/n). “ _ You _ were the woman who was really busy?”

Pepper chuckled, though it sounded a bit sheepish. “That’s me.”

“Wow.” There was a pause before (Y/n) furrowed her eyebrows. “Wait, why were  _ you _ coming to get me.”

Now it was Pepper’s turn to look confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, you’re  _ Pepper Potts! _ ” (Y/n) exclaimed, her eyes widening as she thought about it more. “You’re the CEO of Stark Industries, your fiance is Tony Stark, you’re one of the most powerful women, no,  _ people _ in the whole world! And I…” Then, just as quickly as the energy in her speech had appeared, it disappeared, leaving her feeling just as tired and weak as she had just a moment ago. “I’m just… I’m just  _ me _ . A high-schooler who just so happened to be good enough to get an internship at Stark Industries.” (Y/n) realized she was crying again.  _ God, why am I so emotional right now _ , she thought as she hastily wiped away the tears before they could fall. “So… why are you here for… for  _ me? _ ”

Pepper stared at her for a long moment, and her eyes showed so little emotion that (Y/n) was scared that she had insulted the woman somehow. Then, Pepper sighed and sat back.

“You know… you’re the first high-school intern in Stark Industries history. You… You know that, right?” Pepper asked, turning her head to look out the window to the right, placing a hand under her chin as she spoke, seemingly deep in thought.

(Y/n) swallowed again, and it hurt. Her throat was dry again. She bit her lip before nodding slowly. Then she realized that Pepper, who was still staring out the window, probably couldn’t see the gesture, and she said, “Yes.” Then, after a moment, a face flashed through her mind, and she looked up at Pepper with her eyes slightly narrowed. “Wait… no…”

Pepper turned to her, moving her head from its perch on her chin in her surprise. “What? What do you mean ‘no’?”

“I mean… I have a friend… Well, he’s more like my best friend, actually… His name’s Peter, Peter Parker. He has an internship here. At least, he says he does…”

(Y/n) sees the recognition flash through Pepper’s eyes. Pepper sighed and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“Well… Peter is a… he’s a special case. But, technically, no, he’s not an intern here. Not…  _ legally _ , at least,” Pepper responded after a long quiet.

(Y/n) nodded, looking back at a dark spot on the desk in front of her to avoid meeting eyes with Pepper. “Okay.”

The silence that filled the room again was deafening.

Then, Pepper spoke again.

“Normally, interns are brought in in batches. The few coming in for the month are initiated together before being assigned to their specific sections and are told what to do there and whatnot.”

(Y/n) let the woman’s words sink in before looking up at Pepper again. “But then… why am I here alone? And why am I speaking with  _ you _ , of all people.” Pepper stared at her for a bit too long and (Y/n)’s face heated and she looked back down again. “Uh, no disrespect, Miss Potts, just… you know…”

Pepper nodded and (Y/n) looked up again. She was doing that a lot. 

“Well… you’re right in that there  _ is _ a specific reason for that, but…” Pepper turned away. She seemed to be having a very riveting internal debate with herself and wasn’t sure which side was winning. 

She turned back to (Y/n) again. 

There was silence, and then Pepper took a deep breath and spoke.

“Almost all of the interns that we have here applied for the internship, rather than being offered it like you were,” Pepper began. She folded her hands and set them on the desk in front of her. Her eyes moved down to not meet (Y/n) in the eyes, and yet the girl wondered how anyone could look so professional. “When they apply, they take a test to help determine which of our divisions, departments, whatever you want to call them, they fit best into. Their grades in certain classes affect the final decision too, of course, and there are more factors, but that test is a big one.”

“But… I never took a test.”

Pepper cracked a smile at her word. “No, you didn’t.”

(Y/n) furrowed her eyebrows. “Then… how…”

Pepper shook her head and held up a hand and (Y/n) almost instantaneously fell silent. “Let me finish.”

(Y/n) nodded. She didn’t dare try to speak. She didn’t know if she’d be able to.

“Now, sometimes we extend internship offers to promising people who will just be regular interns, but what we mostly do it for is for the personal interns of Heads of departments.”

(Y/n) let the implications sink in.  _ Personal _ interns?

“I don’t… I don’t understand…”

Pepper smiled again. (Y/n) wasn’t sure whether or not she liked that smile.

The woman across from her unfolded her hands and reached under her desk. (Y/n) heard a button being pressed and watched in awe as a section of the wall to the left folded away to reveal a screen being pushed out. Pepper took out a tablet (there was so much technology in this place it was insane) and swiped on it. The screen on the wall blinked to life. It looked so much more seamless than her own television at home. (Y/n) smacked herself in her mind. Of  _ course, _ it was more seamless. It was Stark Industries!

“Stark Industries has many different divisions, or departments, but we commonly call them divisions,” Pepper said as she seemed to pull up a document. The screen turned white. “But there are eight ‘main’ ones.”

She whipped out one of those fancy pens that one could use on touchscreens. (Y/n) watched her move the pen across the tablet with a slight pang of jealousy. She had always wanted one of those pens. The jealousy went away a moment later as she asked herself what she would even  _ use _ one of those on? Her phone? Her cracked, falling-apart phone? Yeah, no. The thoughts fell away as Pepper spoke again.

“Each Division, obviously, has a name, as well as a small symbol and an abbreviation that we use for easy distinguishability, especially on documents that are overcrowded as is,” Pepper explained. She touched the pen against the tablet and the screen on the wall blipped to something different.

**Division 1: Biology/Environmental Sciences**

Under the words was a small picture of a green leaf, and below that, the letter  _ B _ .

“The first division is Biology and Environmental Sciences. They were, once, two separate divisions, before they ended up working so closely to one another that they were combined into one for convenience. That’s their symbol, their abbreviation is ‘B’,” Pepper explained. (Y/n) nodded slowly, shoving the information into her mind.

Pepper touched the tablet again and the screen changed once more.

**Division 2: Chemistry**

Under the words was a small picture of what looked like clip-art of a [potion](https://library.kissclipart.com/20180901/xkq/kissclipart-flask-clip-art-clipart-laboratory-flasks-erlenmeye-a67c0e8679c945ae.jpg), and below that, the letter  _ C _ .

“The second division is Chemistry. Their abbreviation is ‘C’, there’s their symbol. If you ever hear someone talking about Professor Snape around here, good chance is they’re talking about the head of the Chemistry Division,” Pepper said. (Y/n) snorted and thought of her nickname in all of her text messages.

The screen flicked again.

**Division 3: Human Resources**

Under the words was a small picture of a simple outline of a person’s head. Below that were the letters  _ HR. _ Who would have guessed?

“The third division is Human Resources. They work with all the other divisions to make sure that things are running smoothly with the employees there, and they also work a lot with making sure things are running smoothly with any of our sub-companies or branches in other locations. Their abbreviation is ‘HR’, obviously.”

(Y/n) nodded. That sounded much different than anything she ever imagined being in S.I. 

The screen changed.

**Division 4: Research and Development**

Under the words was a small picture of a [book](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/fb/ab/7a/fbab7ad8cf7c407c40a66a7fafd4c933.png), and under that were the letters  _ R&D _ .  _ That _ was one that she had known of since she could read.

“The fourth division, Research and Development, is probably our most well-known one, for some reason,” Pepper said, though she muttered the last few words. “Their abbreviation is ‘R&D’.”

The screen changed.

**Division 5: Engineering**

Under the words was a small cartoon drawing of a gear, and under that was the letter  _ E _ .

“The fifth division is Engineering. They’re often heavily influenced by R&D, and they also work a lot with the other divisions, too, to develop things like new technologies in that field. Their abbreviation is ‘E’.”

(Y/n) nodded. She could get along well with those in engineering, she was sure.

The screen changed.

**Division 6: Public Relations/Marketing**

Under the words was a clip-art of a [clipboard](https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2016/10/06/19/02/clipboard-1719736__340.png), as well as the letters  _ PR _ .

“The sixth division is Public Relations and Marketing,” Pepper said, and she seemed to perk up a bit, even if it was probably involuntary. She worked a lot with this one, (Y/n) was sure, based on how often she saw the woman in the news. “They, like Biology and Environmental Sciences, used to be separate but were eventually combined together into one after they seemed to, half the time, never  _ not _ be working with the other. They work on almost anything involving the public. Their abbreviation is, obviously, ‘PR’.”

The screen changed.

**Division 7: Programming**

Under the words was a quick drawing of a computer mouse, and under that was the letter  _ P _ .

“The seventh division is Programming. They’re just, well, they’re all about computers and coding. They work with Engineering for programming things like robots. Half the people down there have made their own rudimentary version of an A.I., and they all seem to have the goal of making one better than Tony’s own.” She sighed. “Nobody’s managed it.”

(Y/n) turned her chin up a bit and said, maybe a little too confidently, “Yet.”

Pepper turned to her with wide eyes. She clearly hadn’t been expecting that. A moment later, her face broke out into a smile and she nodded. “Yet.” She looked back at the screen again. “Their abbreviation is ‘P’. Thankfully, there hasn’t been a dispute between them and Public Relations over who gets the singular  _ P _ . PR’s happy with staying  _ PR _ for now.”

The screen changed.

**Division 8: Medical**

Under the words was a clip-art picture of a syringe as well as the letter  _ M _ below that.

“The eighth and final division is Medical. They tend to focus on either medical technology or developing new medicines rather than just the  _ study _ of medicine. Their abbreviation is ‘M’.”

The screen changed again. It was plain white again.

“While each division works within itself, hey also all work together, sending groups of employees off to do a project together. Oftentimes this happens when an employee in one division gets an idea that involves the field of another division. Sometimes just two divisions will work together, sometimes almost all eight will work together on one project. Advancements in BioChemical Engineering are made when Biology, Chemistry, and Engineering all work together,” Pepper explained. She touched the tablet again. The screen changed.

**Sub-Divisions**

“Every division has sub-divisions inside of it. Some of them are in more than one division, too, but do different things, depending on  _ which _ division they are a sub of.” Pepper touched the tablet again. The word  **Genetics** appeared on the screen. “Take Genetics, for example. They are a sub-division in both Biology and Medical. In Biology, however, they tend to experiment with the DNA, to try and code the human genome, to create artificial genes and see what they do, things like that. In Medical, Genetics does things like work on gene therapy to help people with genetic diseases. Helen Cho, the head of our Medical Division, works throughout her division, but tends to frequent with Genetics.”

Pepper touched the tablet again. More words appeared under the word  _ Genetics _ .

“When we refer to sub-divisions, we use a shortened version for the sub-division itself, followed by the abbreviation for the division they come from. So, the Genetics sub-division in Biology is referred to as  _ Genes-B _ , and the Genetics sub-division in Medical is referred to as  _ Genes-M _ . Got it?”

She nodded. 

Pepper touched the tablet again.

“Sub-divisions don’t have Heads but have Directors, that are appointed once a year by the Head of the division. Sometimes the Head will re-appoint a Director for the next year, sometimes they’ll change it up.”

Pepper pressed the tablet again.

“When two divisions work together on a project for a period of time, they form a temporary division called an Inter-Division, like the BioChemical Engineering one we talked about earlier. These Inter-Divisions are overseen by the Heads of the main divisions that are a part of it, but mostly they are managed by their own Heads. These ‘Inter-Heads’, if you will, have their own interns, too. When their Inter-Division isn’t working on anything at the time, they’re generally just on stand-by, just them and their intern.”

(Y/n) was liking the sound of this company.

Pepper turned back to (Y/n) and set her tablet down, folding her hands and placing them on her desk again instead.

“Each division has a Head Scientist. You can learn more about them in the future, eventually, you’ll probably know all of their names, but that doesn’t matter right now. Each Head has a personal intern like we already talked about.” (Y/n) nodded in understanding. “The interns of the Heads can spend up to one week working in the division that their Head is a part of before they are required to work with their Head for at least one day. The interns of Inter-Heads tend to work at least a week in  _ each _ division that the Inter-Head is a part of before working with the Inter-Head. For the intern of the BioChemical Head, then, this would mean working a week in Biology and then a week in Chemistry. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

(Y/n) nodded. That sounded cool. To work in more than one division. She wondered what division  _ she’d _ work in. Maybe Engineering. Or R&D. Or Programming. She  _ was _ rather proud of her work on ALICE. In another life, Tony Stark  _ himself _ had been impressed with her work on the A.I. Maybe that meant something.

“So, what division will  _ I _ be working in?” (Y/n) asked, turning up her head to lock eyes with Pepper.

Pepper smiled widely and, (Y/n) thought, even a bit  _ slyly _ .

“That’s the interesting part, (Y/n),” Pepper said. “Because of company policy, we can only bring on high-school interns if they’re going to be the personal intern for a Head. However, all of the Heads  _ and _ Inter-Heads already have personal interns, and they’re all happy with those interns too, so there was no Head to assign you to.”

(Y/n) deflated. “Oh.”  _ So, she brings me in, goes over all this S.I. stuff with me, gets me really into the company, only to say I can’t be a part of it _ .

“Fortunately,” Pepper said, interrupting (Y/n)’s thoughts, “There was a loophole that I found. See, I often look through the top students from high-schools around here to see if any of them interest me. They often don’t, which tells you why you’re the first high-school intern we have, but I was… drawn to you, for some reason. I had FRIDAY do a bit of digging, and she found a loophole, as I said.”

(Y/n) bit her lip. “What… What is this… this loophole…?”

“As it turns out, in the fine lines of Stark Industries policy, there’s, technically,  _ one _ Head that doesn’t actually have an intern yet. So, I got him to sign off on it, and you’re going to be interning for him.”

Pepper’s smile was really big, now, and it looked a bit excited. (Y/n) furrowed her eyebrows.  _ Who could that be…? _

“Who… Who is it, Miss Potts?” (Y/n) asked.

Pepper’s grin, somehow widened even more as she opened her mouth to speak.

“Tony Stark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Y/n): omigod i embarrassed myself ppl r watching me
> 
> (Y/n)'s Powers: cool can we explode then
> 
> (Y/n): no wait
> 
> Pepper: hm let me save this child
> 
> (Y/n): tea
> 
> Pepper and (Y/n): *awkward sielnce*
> 
> Pepper: so ur an intern
> 
> (Y/n), a high-schooler who was just doing high-school homework: what how did you knowwww
> 
> Pepper: *explains S.I. divisions*
> 
> (Y/n): k but what about me
> 
> Pepper: you get to work with Tony
> 
> Author: *sweats and has so many wiki articles open to put together her own version of S.I., has a Google Doc ready, may be going too far into this*
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here!
> 
> So, I got a bit of inspiration, and I wrote another chapter. Maybe I'll even have another out by Sunday. That'd be a whole extra chapter this week, if I do.
> 
> Let's hope.
> 
> I'm slowly putting together a Google Doc of the Stark Industries Divisions, Sub-Divisions, Inter-Divisions, their Heads, Directors, Notable Employees, etc.
> 
> I'm probably going too far into this, but I want to be ready. Stark Industries is gonna really start being a big part of this story, especially during the gap between Homecoming and Infinity War, and the gap between Endgame and Far From Home.
> 
> I did a lot of research on Stark Industries and the Divisions within it, but I designed the overall way it works on my own. It took a bit out of me, but I'm proud of how the company works so far in this fanfic, so I guess it was worth it.
> 
> I hope you think so, too.
> 
> The first half of this was very character-driven, the second half very business/explanation-driven, but I hope it was all right, all the same.
> 
> This chapter may have been a bit boring, but it was necessary.
> 
> If you didn't see this in the update for the Fan-Art Contest 2, by the way, the e-mail Peter and (Y/n) use for their YouTube channel is:
> 
> spooderman.and.spacechick@gmail.com
> 
> Yes, it is a real e-mail.
> 
> Yes, you can e-mail it.
> 
> Do with that what you will.
> 
> Anyway, that's all for now!
> 
> Bye, Bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Pepper explains more and (Y/n) gets a card.

(Y/n) felt herself go rigid. _There was the magic again_. It was welling up inside of her, fighting to break free. (Y/n) removed her hands from the desk and placed them in her lap to hide them from Pepper’s view. Her hands tightened into fists and she closed her eyes. She could hear her heart beating in her ears.

(Y/n) opened her eyes and looked down at her hands. They were clenched, but she could see purple tendrils of magic sneaking out from between her fingers. She glared at the magic and relaxed her body. The wisps moved into the air before disappearing before they had even come out from under the desk.

She looked back up to Pepper who had been silently observing her. (Y/n) took a deep breath, her heart still pounding, and asked, “Tony… Tony Stark? Like… Like _the_ Tony Stark?”

Pepper cracked a smile and nodded. “The very same.”

(Y/n) ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t… I don’t _understand_. What does that mean? What am I supposed to do? I mean, like, I know he _owns_ the company, but does that count? Is he an official part of any of the divisions? What do I-”

Pepper held up a hand and (Y/n) immediately fell silent. 

“One of the main reasons that we brought you on as an intern was that, well, we know you don’t come from the… best circumstances…”

(Y/n) snorted. 

Pepper sighed. “Yes, well, we wanted to, er, _snatch you up_ ahead of the game, so to speak. When you get out of high school, I’m sure that you’re gonna be fought over, and after living the way you have been recently, I’m sure any of them would be appealing. So, we wanted to grab you as quickly as we could. The only way to do that, though, as you _are_ still in high school, was to put you in as Tony’s intern.”

(Y/n) nodded. “Okay, but… Why’d you choose _me?_ ”

Pepper chuckled. “We at S.I. pride ourselves with having our scientists and engineers, et cetera, being the best of the best. Or, at least, _some_ of the best of the best. Can’t get them all, you know.” She smiled. “As I said, we look over the top students of all the schools in the city, and you really caught my eye. I don’t know what it was. Wouldn’t put celestial connection past it in the world we live in, honestly. But I knew we had to have you.” Her smile widened. “And when I put my mind to it, I get whatever I want.”

(Y/n) nodded slowly. “All right… So this was your doing?”

Pepper gave her a quick nod in confirmation. 

“Okay, okay, I’m fine, I’m good, we’re all good here, definitely not slowly imploding and exploding at the same time, it’s all good,” (Y/n) muttered to herself, her voice spiking at a strangely high pitch. Pepper was watching her with an air of amusement. (Y/n) took a deep breath and looked back up at the businesswoman across from her. “What… What will I even be _doing?_ ”

“I’m glad you asked,” Pepper said. “Since Tony is well, _Tony_ , he is, _technically_ , a Head of _all_ divisions, which means that you’ll work about a week in each division until you work with him for a day.”

“So… So I won’t really be working with him, then?”

Pepper frowned. “No, I’m afraid not. Tony… Tony, believe it or not, doesn’t really like teenagers all that much. He’ll handle people, act like _Tony Stark_ around them, but he won’t act like Tony, anyway. Don’t… Don’t take it personally.” 

“Okay.”

(Y/n) couldn’t help the feeling of disappointment that overwhelmed her. It was like she had gone from zero to one-hundred and then back to zero in one rollercoaster of a minute.

“So… How will this… work?”

Pepper’s frown fell away, replaced with that calm smile that was always on her face when she was on television. “Ah, yes, I forgot about that.” She pulled out a paper from her desk and looked at it for a moment before placing it down in front of her and locking eyes with (Y/n). 

“It’ll basically be like how the interns of Inter-Heads work, except instead of working a week in Biology and Chemistry, for example, you’ll work a week in every division. You can alternate between them as you go, of course, but most interns of Inter-Heads, actually, we call them inter-interns, so, uh, most inter-interns work their full week in one division before moving onto the next, so you can do whatever you want.

“One full workweek for an intern is twenty hours. That’s four hours a day during the week with free weekends. Our staff obviously works more, but our interns are mostly in college or university or have jobs because the internship is unpaid, so they only have to do twenty hours a week. This can be done in any way. You could not come in on Monday at all, do extra on Friday night, come in early on Saturday and work all day, you just have to have twenty hours in from midnight on Sunday to midnight on Sunday one week later. You get two warnings before you sit down with the Head you’re assigned under, and if it happens again after that meeting, you’re let go.”

(Y/n) nodded. Her heart was pounding again.

“We aren’t savages, though. We make exceptions for things like sickness, loss, health-related or family-related things. You just have to give us notice. We’ll use resources like our databases to show if it’s true, and we tend to send one of the interns off to check on employees that are sick to confirm that they aren’t just skipping work.” Pepper’s eyes seemed to stare into her soul. “Understand?”

(Y/n) nodded again. “Yes, ma’am.”

Pepper’s eyes gleamed.

“Every Head has their own way to keep track of their interns, but Human Resources is where the actual Intern sub-division is. That’s where interns are brought in and initiated and all that jazz.” (Y/n) had never, not in a thousand years, thought she’d be sitting across from Pepper Potts as the CEO of Stark Industries said the words ‘all that jazz’. The world works in strange and wondrous ways, she supposed. “We’re gonna go head down there right now, actually, to get you a card.”

“A card?” (Y/n) asked, standing up as Pepper did and following the woman to the door.

Pepper nodded. “Yes, like this one.” She lifted the lanyard that (Y/n) just now realized dangled around her neck. “There are different levels to the cards that we can talk about once we get down there. They have a _very_ handy diagram if I do say so myself.” (Y/n) cracked a smile at that. Pepper looked a bit proud of herself. 

(Y/n) followed Pepper out of the office and into the hallway. She realized, suddenly, as the door closed, how large Pepper’s office was. It made sense, though. She _was_ the CEO. The plaque next to the door said so. _P. Potts, CEO_.

“What floor are we on?” (Y/n) asked as they moved through the hallway. She thought about how high up they had been when she had looked out the window in Pepper’s office. (Y/n) hadn’t thought much of it at the time, but now…

“Floor 95,” Pepper responded. “91 to 95 are all meeting rooms and offices. There’s actually-”

“A _very_ handy diagram?” (Y/n) suggested. Pepper looked down at her and (Y/n), though she felt like wilting under the woman’s gaze, stood firm. A moment later, Pepper cracked a smile and nodded. 

“There _is_ , actually.”

They made it through the hallways and to an elevator. It opened as Pepper stepped toward it.

“Wow,” (Y/n) said, blinking. She _always_ had to wait for the elevator to come from a different floor whenever she uses one. “It’s like it was just… waiting right there for you.”

Pepper chuckled as they stepped in. She gestured to the row of about six elevators along each of the other walls (so… twelve in total) as the doors closed. “Those are the normal elevators. The two on this side are private ones. They only open for me, Tony, and any personal guests of ours. Since Tony and I are the only ones in the Tower right now that can use these, one is waiting for him up on the floor he’s on, and the other was, well, waiting for me, obviously.”

(Y/n) nodded. “That’s so cool.”

As she finished speaking, a new, accented voice filled the elevator.

“Greetings, Miss Potts. Where can I take you?”

“The HR Intern sub-division, please, FRIDAY.” The elevator began to move downward

“Who was that?” (Y/n) asked after jumping a bit at the sudden appearance of the voice of Tony Stark’s A.I. 

“That was FRIDAY, Tony’s A.I.”

(Y/n) nodded. She knew that. She remembered FRIDAY from the Compound the first time around. Why had she even asked about that?

“Is she the one people always try to get on the level of?” (Y/n) asked. “In the Programming Division? I think you mentioned that…”

Pepper nodded. “Yes. Well, her and JARVIS, but JARVIS is kinda Vision now, so it’s more his memory that people try to replicate…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. No one can ever get to Tony’s level, anyway, and even then even _Tony_ can’t seem to replicate the self-awareness and _humanity_ that JARVIS had. We have an Inter-Division for the development of emotion in A.I., but they haven’t had any major breakthroughs, either. They work solely with a dumbed-down version of FRIDAY’s code, I believe, but nothing seems to work.” (Y/n) wondered what her days in the Programming Division would be like. She wondered if people would be impressed by her work with ALICE. She hoped so.

The elevator dinged. 

“You have arrived, Miss Potts.”

“Thank you, FRIDAY.”

“It is no problem,” the A.I. replied. (Y/n) followed Pepper out of the elevator and the doors closed behind them a moment later. 

“This way,” Pepper said. They rounded the corner and moved out of the elevator area before Peper slid her keycard in a slot and two doors slid open. They walked through them, and the doors closed a moment later.

“So… What floor are we on now?” (Y/n) asked. It was probably a good idea to get familiar with the building, especially if she was going to be working all over the place inside of it. Pepper glanced up at the ceiling.

“FRIDAY?”

“You are currently on Floor 21,” FRIDAY stated. “Home to the Human Resources sub-divisions of ‘Payroll’ and ‘Interns’.”

“Thanks, Fri.”

As they walked, Pepper began to speak again.

“As I said, there are certain floors designated for each division. The number of floors a division has varies depending on its number of sub-divisions. There are two sub-divisions to a floor, and at least one additional floor for the division, sometimes more, on top of that. Medical, our biggest division, takes up around ten floors, for example, while Chemistry, one of our smaller ones in terms of the number of sub-divisions, takes up only about five.”

(Y/n) nodded. This company was run much differently than she had imagined, and she had to admit that she _liked_ the difference.

“Ah, here we are.”

A door with a sign on it was in front of them. (Y/n) read the words on it. _Elisabeth Penn, Director of Interns_. Pepper reached forward and rapped her knuckles on the wood.

A moment later, the door swung open to reveal a young woman maybe a few inches shorter than Pepper, her black hair falling in ringlets around her shoulders, dressed in a cream-colored shirt and black skirt, with sparkling white-blue eyes that lit up when they landed on the businesswoman.

“Miss Potts! I didn’t… I didn’t expect to see you here today! I would have tidied up! Nevertheless, come in, come in!”

The woman moved back inside of her office and gave a beckoning wave. (Y/n) followed Pepper in and Elisabeth closed the door behind them.

Elisabeth went back behind her desk and sat down. “So, what can I do for you, Miss Potts?”

“I have an intern here that needs a card,” Pepper said, placing her hand on (Y/n)’s back, right between her shoulder blades, and gently nudging her fully into view. 

“Really? But… But I thought this month’s initiation was last week? Am I going crazy?”

Pepper chuckled, though her lips didn’t open, and shook her head. “No, you’re not.”

Elisabeth’s eyes widened and seemed to gain another sparkle. “Wait, is she…” She turned to (Y/n) suddenly, standing up and leaning over the table toward her. Her eyes looked like lightning. “Are you… a _selected?_ ”

(Y/n) blinked. “A what now?”

Pepper sighed. “A selected is what people around here call someone who was selected to be an intern instead of signing up for it.” She turned to Elisabeth. “And yes, yes she is.”

Elisabeth grinned. “Oh, wow! We haven’t had a _selected_ in so very long!” Her eyebrows furrowed. “But wait… unless I’m mistaken, none of our Heads or Inter-Heads have let an intern go or lost one, and other than that it’s all filled up, so who is she…”

Pepper turned away for a moment, seeming to debate her options, before she said, “She’s Tony’s intern.”

Elisabeth’s eyes, if possible, grew even wider. “Tony’s? You mean like… like _Tony Stark,_ Tony? Like the _owner of this company_ Tony?”

Pepper’s eyes squinted a bit and she nodded.

Elisabeth gasped and hopped on the balls of her feet. “Holy _shit_ , er, pardon my French, Miss Potts, but, my God, I didn’t even know Mr. Stark was accepting interns, oh, my god!” She rounded on (Y/n) again suddenly and peered at her. “Wait… how old are you?”

(Y/n) swallowed before saying, “Uh, four-fourteen, miss.”

Elisabeth’s eyes, somehow, grew _even_ wider. She turned to Pepper, her mouth agape. Finally, she seemed to gather her bearings. “Fourteen? _Fourteen?_ ” 

Pepper nodded.

“Are you _kidding_ me?” Elisabeth asked. “Oh, my god, that’s insane, this is insane, everything is insane, I’m going insane.” She took a deep breath. “What grade are you in?”

“I’m a… a sophomore…”

“A sophomore…” Elisabeth said thoughtfully. She scrunched up her face. “Wait, sophomores are normally, like, fifteen, right? How are you _fourteen?_ ”

(Y/n) rubbed the back of her neck. “I skipped kindergarten.”

“Ah, that would do it.”

After a moment of silence, Pepper broke it by saying, “So, about that card!”

Elisabeth started. “Ah, yes, of course, so sorry!” She grabbed something off of her desk and held down a button. Was that a… walkie-talkie? “Matthew? Matthew, you better be there.”

There was a crackle and then, “ _Yeah, I’m here, ‘Lisa_.”

Elisabeth pursed her lips at the name but said nothing. “Miss Potts is on her way down to you with a new intern in need of a card. Just wanted to warn you.”

Crackle. “ _Miss Potts? As in_ the _Pepper Potts?_ ” God, the people around here really seemed to just _worship_ Tony and Pepper. (Y/n)’s face grew hot. Who was she to judge? She kinda did, too.

“The very same.”

“ _Holy shit, ‘Lisa. Okay, okay, I got it. But… why is Miss Potts bringing down an intern? Herself? Initiation was last week, anyways…_ ”

“Matt, she’s a _selected_.”

There was silence. Then a crackle. “ _Holy_ shit _. This day could_ not _get any crazier._ ” There was the sound of shuffling and then the voice returned. “ _All right, I’m good. Go ahead, send ‘em down whenever, I’ll be ready_.”

Elisabeth put the walkie-talkie back on her desk and looked at the two of them with a smile. “All right, you’re all set.” She turned to Pepper. “You know where the card room is, right?”

Pepper nodded. “I do. Thank you, Elisabeth.”

“Any time, Miss Potts!”

They left the office and Elisabeth gave one final wave before closing the door behind them.

“Well, she was fun,” Pepper said. (Y/n) was still in a bit of a state of shock after the overwhelming presence of Elisabeth Penn had invaded everything she had ever known. “She’s always like that, by the way. Been our Director of Interns for the past fifteen years, you get used to her after a while.” (Y/n) nodded. “Come on, let’s go get you a card.”

(Y/n) followed Pepper back through the corridors. They took a left, a left, then a right, and then they were there. There were windows into half the rooms in this place, including this one, which had the sign ‘CARD ROOM’ hanging over the doors. Pepper stepped closer and the doors slid open.

“Miss Potts!”

A young man with dirty blond hair with one streak of dark blue in it waved to them from the other side of the room.

“Hello, Matthew. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, ever since I moved up from bag-check, I haven’t seen _anyone_.”

Pepper turned to (Y/n). “Matthew works in Security. He used to be on bag-check downstairs in the lobby, but about a year and a half ago he was moved up to here, on card duty.”

“Eh, it’s fine,” Matthew said, waving a hand. “I have permanent friends up here in Interns, who aren’t across a buncha different divisions, and this is _way_ more fun than checking bags every day.”

Pepper smiled softly. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“So, what’re we printing today?”

“I need a Head-Intern card,” Pepper replied.

Matthew nodded. He turned to a computer and typed a few things in before frowning. “Miss Potts, this says there are already all eight Head-Intern cards out.”

“Well, thanks to a little loophole in company policy, there will now be nine.”

“I’m afraid I don’t follow…”

“(Y/n) here is gonna be Tony’s intern.”

Matthew’s eyes widened and a grin appeared on his face. “Holy shit, er, sorry, Miss Potts, but seriously, _holy shit_ , really? Tony _Stark’s_ intern? That’s awesome, dude.”

(Y/n) nodded, wanting nothing more than to shrink into herself and disappear. “Yeah…”

“All right, then. One Head-Intern card coming right up!”

He moved toward a machine and jabbed at the small screen on it a few times before nodding. He turned back to the other two. “All right, should just take five minutes, at the most.” He gestured to a poster on the wall. “If you haven’t seen it already, I’d advise looking at the Access Level diagram. Helps to figure out who’s who when you’re around the Tower.”

(Y/n) nodded. She turned to the poster and moved away from Pepper to stare at it.

_The Quick Guide to the Access Levels of Stark Industries_

  1. _Guest/Press (one use, pre-assigned destination/s) {Black}_

  2. _Front Desk/Lobby (permanent [until removal], lobby+approved staff rooms) {Gray}_

  3. _Intern (permanent [until removal], designated division+approved staff rooms) {Green}_

  4. _Inter-Interns (permanent [until removal], designated inter-division+approved staff rooms) {Yellow}_

  5. _Low-Level Employee (1-5 years [unless removal], designated division+approved staff rooms) {Pink}_

  6. _Head-Intern (permanent [until removal], designated division+approved staff rooms) {Cornflower Blue}_

  7. _High-Level Employee (5+ years, permanent [until removal], designated division+approved staff rooms) {Purple}_

  8. _Director (1+ years, given reinstatement, designated division+approved staff rooms) {Cyan}_

  9. _Inter-Head (permanent [until removal], designated inter-division+divisions+approved staff rooms) {Orange}_

  10. _Head (permanent [until removal], designated division+approved staff rooms) {Blue}_

  11. _Personal Guests (one use or permanent, approved by All Access, approved rooms by All Access, could be goverment officials and business associates as well) {Red}_

  12. _All Access (permanent, go anywhere, reserved for Tony Stark and Pepper Potts) {Red and Gold}_




(Y/n) hummed. She scanned the list again before locating _Head-Intern_. She read through it before finding the name of the color. Cornflower Blue. She nodded a bit to herself. A pleasant color, indeed.

“And, here you are. One fresh Head-Intern card,” Matthew said, holding out the card to (Y/n). She smiled and took it.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, kid. Just… don’t lose it. A pain in the ass, that is.” (Y/n) nodded firmly and grasped the card in her hand a little bit tighter.

Pepper smiled. “All right, that’s all we need. Thanks, Matthew.”

“See ya, Miss Potts!”

(Y/n) gave a wave over her shoulder before following Pepper out the door.

“FRIDAY, what time is it?” Pepper asked as they made their way back to the elevators.

“Approximately 7:49 in the evening.”

Pepper’s eyes widened. “Oh.” She turned to (Y/n). “Considering you were being initiated, we’ll say that these last four hours count toward your twenty-hour total for the week.”

(Y/n)’s eyes widened. “What? Miss Potts, I can’t-”

Pepper ignored her and moved toward a door on the side of the hallway they were in. She scanned her card and the door opened. The woman poked her head inside before grabbing something and closing the door behind her again. She pressed a small book into (Y/n)’s hands.

“There’s the guide. That’s what they skim through in the normal initiation. Just… read through it when you have the chance, you know, outside of this place. Try to be done by the end of the month. Don’t fall behind on grades or anything for this, prove you’re worthy, all that stuff.” (Y/n) nodded along with Pepper’s words.

Pepper smiled down at her as they reached the elevators. 

The door to the one they had been in earlier opened as they approached.

“Lobby, please, FRIDAY.”

“Yes, Miss Potts.”

The elevator slowly descended and (Y/n) slipped her card into her pocket. She clutched the guide in her hands and glanced down at the title on the front. _The Hopefully Pretty Quick Guide to Stark Industries_. She cracked a smile. That was a nice name

The elevator dinged and Pepper stepped out of it with (Y/n).”

“Leave the doors open, Fri, I’ll just be a second.”

“Yes, Miss Potts.”

The elevator doors remained opened.

Pepper turned to (Y/n). “Well, this is where we part ways, I guess.”

(Y/n) swallowed but nodded. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye. She had just gotten Pepper, one of her favorite people in the world, honestly, back in this timeline, and now she was gonna leave again. 

“I’ll probably see you when you work with PR. I do a lot of stuff with them. But, other than that and just randomly seeing you around, I guess _maybe_ I’ll catch you on the day you work with Tony for the first time, in about two months.” 

(Y/n) nodded.

“Thank you, Miss Potts,” she said after a long moment of quiet. “For everything.”

Pepper smiled. (Y/n) liked her smile. The woman patted her on the shoulder. “You’re a good kid, (Y/n). I can’t wait to see what you do for the company.” She moved her hand from (Y/n)’s shoulder, and the skin suddenly felt cold. “See you later, (Y/n).”

“Bye.”

Pepper walked back into the elevator and gave a final wave before the doors closed. (Y/n)’s hearing caught the elevator whirring as it moved upward a moment later.

(Y/n) turned and took a deep breath before walking out, past security, and into the main lobby. She glanced at the front desk and noticed a new woman was there in Georgia’s place. Her shift must have ended while (Y/n) was upstairs. (Y/n) gave a wave to… Willa, her nametag said, as she made her way to the door. Willa waved back. Nice lady.

(Y/n) turned to look straight ahead as she pushed open the front door. The air that flowed over her body was cool and crisp. The last rays of sunlight were peeking over the building. (Y/n) took in a deep, cold breath before turning and making her way off into the city that was slowly illuminating itself with lights.

She pulled out her phone, tucking the guide under her arm to type.

****8:01 pm** **

** SpaceSpaceSeverusSpace **-** _bro prepare for school tomorrow_ **

** SpaceSpaceSeverusSpace **-** _i has all the tea_ **

** SpaceSpaceSeverusSpace **-** _and it is redy to spilleth_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Y/n): omigod tony stark?!?!?
> 
> Pepper: yes
> 
> Pepper: well, actually....
> 
> Pepper: MORE EXPLANATIONS FOR SHIT
> 
> (Y/n): this place sounds cool
> 
> Elisabeth: *is crazy* are you a sElEcTeD
> 
> Matthew: sHe Is A sElEcTeD
> 
> (Y/n): uh...
> 
> Pepper: ok that was fun see ya never
> 
> (Y/n): petey my boi i has the tea to spilleht
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here!
> 
> So, I'm slowly writing that guide that was mentioned in this chapter, The Hopefully Pretty Quick Guide to Stark Industries, and I'm probably gonna put it up on Ao3 when I finish it, so I'll link that here when I do. I'm just having too much fun with it.
> 
> At this point, if your name appears in the story as a character, I'm sorry. I know this is an 'x reader' story, but I need more character names, especially now that we're in Stark Industries, and using only unique names just won't cut it anymore. So, if you see your name used in the story by a different character, ignore it. I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do. I've already written down the names of all the Heads, Inter-Heads, and Directors, and I'm not changing them now, so what's done is done.
> 
> On another note, we shot past 1,800 favorites like it was nothing! That's so cool!
> 
> So, I got an extra chapter out for you this week. We had last Sunday, then Thursday, and now this one, on time, too. I hope it was satisfactory. We finally got through a lot of the explanation stuff for S.I., so tomorrow we can start doing shit!
> 
> Yas!
> 
> That's all for now!
> 
> Bye, Bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!


	6. ALICE Interlude II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which it turns out that ALICE knows much more than she is letting on...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is really short but I'm tired, so whatever. Here you go. Enjoy the second ALICE Interlude

Ever since the beginning of her creation, ALICE and (Y/n) were alone (besides those few times when Lob would come up from the lobby, or when friends from the street would come up to say hello, or when _Carliana_ would visit). ALICE was used to the silence. It would be her and (Y/n), until the end.

(Y/n) would come home from school with her little pile of homework and she’d sit down and work. At first, ALICE had expected (Y/n) to ask questions, to ask for help when she reached a particularly difficult question, like most of the children ALICE had seen as she aimlessly browsed the internet during her spare time.

She hadn’t.

(Y/n) had moved through the questions almost robotically, to the point where ALICE wondered if this girl should even be in the classes she is now if it’s so easy. ALICE voiced this at one point, but (Y/n) just waved her hand and replied with the simple explanation that she’d already skipped a grade, that her mother wouldn’t let her do anymore. ALICE had stored that information away in her memory banks and gone on with her life.

ALICE knew that (Y/n) was smart, _very_ smart, of course, she did. The girl had _made_ ALICE after all, hadn’t she? But it had still rocked her to the core as she watched through her cameras as (Y/n) moved through problems that looked much too advanced for a thirteen-year-old. (Y/n) had waved her off, saying that she was in high-school now, she was _finally_ allowed to do _advanced_ math. ALICE had agreed and not said anything more.

ALICE liked being alone with (Y/n). Sometimes, the girl would be late coming home from school because she was walking, or she was kept up along the way. But she was there every night, by six o’clock, doing homework on the floor on her apartment, even if there was a table a few feet away.

One night, ALICE had asked, “ _Why do you do your homework on the floor, (Y/n)?_ ”

(Y/n) had glanced up, her eyes finding one of ALICE’s cameras, before she had shrugged and said, “ _I don’t know. I just… like it, I guess. Having everything spread out in front of me. It just… feels right._ ”

If ALICE could nod, she would have, but she couldn’t, so she had simply made a humming sound and fallen silent.

ALICE was used to it just being her and (Y/n). And she was fine with that. ALICE and her creator, alone, together.

But then things had changed.

(Y/n) had brought home a friend. And this friend was _Spider-Man_. 

ALICE’s creator spoke in quick words. This was a boy named Peter Parker. He was Spider-Man. And he had a bullet in his shoulder.

ALICE had directed (Y/n) on what to do to help this ‘Peter Parker’. The girl had gotten the bullet out of her friend’s shoulder and called both his aunt and Tony Stark (who ALICE had always secretly admired for _his_ work with A.I.s). Stark had shown up and (after a quick conversation that was really just Peter begging), (Y/n) was asked to go with them for the weekend. She took the travel bag _and_ her laptop, which had ALICE’s main code on it.

(Y/n) proudly showed ALICE to Tony Stark when the man asked about her. ALICE had just acted normally, but Stark had seemed completely blown away by her and the way she acted. ALICE was a bit confused by the way he acted, but she shook it off.

The next day, (Y/n) and ALICE had gone home, primary functions were transferred back to the apartment, and everything had been calm. ALICE had turned an animatic on at (Y/n)’s request and things had settled down.

And then (Y/n) had vanished in a flash of blue light.

That experience had been one of the strangest for ALICE. Because exactly 5.48 seconds after her creator vanished, ALICE was seeing something in a place where she _didn’t have cameras_.

The view was impeccable. The cameras (Y/n) had bought for her were as fixed as the girl could make them, but they were still cheap little things from Walmart or something, there was only so much she could do. ALICE had never seen things in such detail. She marveled at the quality for a moment before turning her attention to the scene unfolding in front of her.

There were muggers.

There was Spider-Man.

There was a gunshot.

_There was (Y/n)._

ALICE felt… something… settle inside of her. It was strange, a heavy feeling. It was… well, she didn’t know _what_ it was, exactly. She wasn’t _supposed_ to feel. But she did, she always _had_ , deep down. This feeling… it was _cold_. It washed over ALICE’s coding as she imagined it would for a human with a normal body. It was this overwhelming feeling of… _dread_.

The ‘camera’ switched (she didn’t know if she should call it a camera, all she knew was that (Y/n) is _dying_ , and you don’t come back from dying, she’s _dying and that’s it, that’s it, she’s dying, she’s dying, she’s dying_ ). Peter was ripping off his mask and cradling (Y/n)’s body in his arms. ALICE had been with (Y/n) long enough, knew her creator well enough to see the fear in the teenager’s eyes. _She was only fifteen…_

There was something, deep within ALICE’s coding, that welled up as she watched the scene in front of her unfold. There was something in her that _knew_ this was real. This was happening. (Y/n) was dying and there was nothing she could do but watch as Peter continued talking to the girl until she was gone.

ALICE felt something push its way to the surface, something she had never imagined. Her speakers blared to the top volume involuntarily and, as Tony Stark comforted a sobbing Peter Parker on the roof of a building, ALICE, for the first time in her entire existence, _screamed_.

She looked on at (Y/n)’s body and screamed and sobbed and begged someone, _anyone_ , to save this girl, this wonderful girl with such a _bright_ future ahead of her.

There had been a flash, and then darkness as if all her cameras and processors had abruptly cut off. She wondered if she had overloaded them. She imagined that, if she had a body, there would be tears staining her cheeks, her chin, her face. Because (Y/n) was _gone_.

**_And the world stuttered…_ **

**_And it was anew..._ **

ALICE came online at 5:26 in the morning on February 2, 2017. 

Her processors hummed with confusion. She was _sure_ it had been closer to maybe eleven at night, at the most. She had been a bit… preoccupied… by the situation to check. But even if she had _somehow_ lost track of time, there was _no way_ she messed up the date _that_ badly. It was _not_ February 2, 2017. It was March of _2018_.

ALICE flicked to the internet as quickly as she could. She browsed through, but all of the current news matched up only with news from her memory banks of 2017, not with anything from later in the year, or from 2018.

Now, ALICE knew she was an advanced A.I., but even _she_ couldn’t imagine a whole year. That was a bit much. And it wouldn’t make sense for her either.

So… what had happened?

She had no more time to dwell on it as (Y/n) shot awake.

_(Y/n)._

It had taken ALICE a moment to realize that she was in the apartment, not watching her creator get shot and killed. She almost spoke, it was on the tip of her speakers, almost asked with incredulity, “ _You’re alive?_ ” However, her natural logic won out quickly. What if it brought back a painful memory of her death? What if (Y/n) didn’t even _remember_ dying? Or the whole year? 

“ALICE?” (Y/n) asked, and her voice was scratchy as she spoke. 

“Yes?” ALICE cringed in her code at the static in her voice. Ah, yes, she hadn’t recalled that this was a time _before_ (Y/n) had fixed up her speakers. How lovely.

“What time is it?”

ALICE relayed the information, as well as including that the girl’s alarm clock that was somehow running in her systems would be going off in just a few minutes. (Y/n) nodded and sank back before her eyes widened and she shot forward.

“Peter!”

ALICE feigned innocence. “I’m sorry, (Y/n), who?”

“A… a friend from school… his name is Peter.”

“I see.”

Now, ALICE was completely sure that (Y/n) remembered the… whatever one could call it. A ‘reset’ maybe? That could work. In the back of her coding, ALICE opened up a window on the internet and began searching.

All she got back was ‘time travel’.

ALICE used her memory banks of the previous version of these events to effortlessly navigate her way through them (she was rather proud of how she handled it all), and then (Y/n) was off at school.

When she got home late last night bearing medicine and a fever, ALICE had been concerned. Were there repercussions to this ‘reset’ that she didn’t know about?

No, it turned out it was just a fever from a discovery of a new power.

The next day, Peter showed up with a friend named Ned Leeds.

As Peter and (Y/n) had a hushed conversation in the bedroom, ALICE had quickly come to the conclusion that, somehow, Peter remembered the ‘reset’ as well. That was strange.

ALICE played around with Ned a bit, using her normal accent to her advantage before (Y/n) went and ruined her fun (could humans ruin the fun of A.I.s? ALICE certainly thought so).

As (Y/n) fell asleep that night, turning over in her bed a bit in her rest, ALICE thought on a few things before going into low power mode.

 _Why_ had things reset? Was it because of (Y/n)’s death? Was it related to her powers? ALICE gathered all of these questions and more onto a personal document that she tucked away in her coding.

ALICE had gotten to the conclusion, after hours of research, that, somehow, they had time traveled. (Y/n) and Peter were certainly aware of it, and ALICE had a sneaking suspicion that she _wasn’t supposed to remember_.

But she did. _In_ way _too vivid detail, in her opinion_. She thought back to the death of her creator. She would have shivered if she could.

ALICE thought about how the world was now, with aliens and technology beyond wildest dreams and _magic_ , and decided that the idea that her consciousness had somehow traveled back in time was not all that far-fetched after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALICE: I like being alone with my (Y/n).
> 
> Peter: *exists*
> 
> ALICE: Excuse me what the f-
> 
> ALICE: Oh, what a nice day today is
> 
> (Y/n): *dies*
> 
> ALICE: Excuse me what the f-
> 
> The World: *resets*
> 
> (Y/n): *is alive*
> 
> ALICE: ...
> 
> ALICE: Okay, so I'm happy...
> 
> ALICE: But...
> 
> ALICE: Excuse me what the f-
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> So, yeah! ALICE remembers. Whoa, what a shock. Yes, there is a reason for this. No, we will not find that reason out soon. But there IS a reason.


	7. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which (Y/n) tells her friends who she's interning for, and heads to Stark Tower for her first day as an intern.

"What's the tea, sis?" Peter asked as he slid in besides (Y/n) for first hour. 

She snorted and tapped her finger on his nose, making him lean back a small bit away from her touch. "Not yet, dumbass. Wait until lunch."

He scoffed. "Uh, I'm your best friend. Do I not get priority over Ned and MJ?"

"Don't let MJ catch you saying that." She paused. "Come to think of it, don't let _Ned_ catch you saying that, either."

Peter's face turned red and he shifted in his seat before nodding. "Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

"But, seriously, _no._ You've just gotta wait. Sorry, man."

Peter crossed his arms and grumbled, "No, you're not."

In second hour, Peter poked her over and over in the shoulder.

"Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me-"

"If you don't shut the hell up I'm gonna literally punch you in the face."

" _(L/n)!_ "

Both teens looked up to the teacher in the front, who was glaring at (Y/n).

"No threatening other students. I don't want to have to warn you again."

(Y/n)'s face darkened and she nodded, sinking back in her seat. The teacher's eyes narrowed a bit more before she turned back to her computer. A moment later, (Y/n)'s breath tickled Peter's ear as she leaned in close and hissed, " _You're the worst._ "

Peter whacked her away and didn't respond.

In third hour, the hour before lunch, Peter had to go to the bathroom before heading to class, so he when he entered the classroom, he popped up behind (Y/n) (which made her jump around a foot in the air) and asked, "What's the tea?"

She whirled around and smacked him lightly on the shoulder, her eyes wide and angry. "Will you give it a _break?_ There's _literally_ one hour left until lunch, Peter. _One. Hour._ " She turned back around in her seat and crossed her arms. "Just be _patient_."

Finally, the never-ending eternity that third hour had been finished with the ringing of the bell overhead, and Peter trailed (Y/n) to the cafeteria to eat.

"Come on, I wanna feel like I'm in the _know_ ," Peter said as they moved down the stairs.

"Just 'cause you're my _bestest_ best friend doesn't mean you get special privileges over my other best friends," she said, waving him off.

Peter placed a hand over his heart as they left the stairwell. "I'm offended."

The edges of her lips quirked up. "Good."

When they arrived in the cafeteria and had gotten their lunches, Peter slid in beside Ned, across from (Y/n) who was seated beside MJ.

"Okay, okay, everyone shut up," Peter said as soon as he set down his tray. "Before we get on with the normal shit we do at lunch, _(Y/n)_ said that she has some tea to spill, and I _need to know it_."

All eyes turned to (Y/n). MJ raised an eyebrow.

"This true, (L/n)?"

"Yep," she said. Her gaze shifted solely to Peter. "But it's _secret_ tea, so no one gets to find out until we're all done eating so we can talk about it outside."

Peter's eyes widened a bit before he slammed his forehead right down onto the table, trying to ignore the way his friends broke out into laughter around him.

Peter had never eaten as fast as he did then (except maybe when he was _really_ hungry because enhanced metabolism could be a _bitch_ sometimes), and soon he was bouncing in his seat, trying to urge his friends to eat faster.

"Parker, I swear to God, if you don't shut the hell up, I'm gonna punch you," MJ growled, taking an extra slow bite of her sandwich.

(Y/n) gasped and placed a hand over her heart with a smile. "That's _exactly_ what _I_ said earlier?"

MJ glanced at her and returned the smile, giving a small nod to the other girl as she chewed her food.

Peter sighed and slumped in his seat.

Finally, after what felt like years, Ned finished his last piece of pineapple from his fruit cup and Peter hopped up so fast he wondered if he had actually been standing the whole time. (Y/n) led the way out of the cafeteria. MJ said a few sweet words to the security man at the doors and soon enough they were all strolling outside in the crisp air of the early days of Autumn.

After a few minutes, (Y/n) selected a bench far away from any people who might be listening in (whether intentional or not) and sat down. MJ sat beside her and Peter and Ned both plopped down on the ground.

"What's the tea, what's the tea, what's the tea-"

"Peter, I said I would tell you, but you're being so annoying that I'm starting to reconsider," (Y/n) said, running a hand down her face.

Peter's mouth was shut so fast it almost hurt. He didn't know _why_ he was so excited to hear this news, but the fact that for the past half-day his best friend had continuously refused to give him any information despite his constant requests had probably increased his curiosity tenfold.

"So, I went in for my internship yesterday," she said. Everyone, including Peter, seemed to lean in closer involuntarily. Anything involving a Stark Internship was always interesting, especially when it was a _real_ internship, not a cover for superheroing (though _that_ wasn't necessarily that uninteresting, either). 

"What happened?" MJ prompted.

"Well, I got there around four, and the lady at the front desk had me go through security and shit and said someone would be down to get me and so I waited for like _forever_ and decided to do my homework, right?"

Ned nodded knowingly. "Making good use of your time."

"Yeah. So, I did all my homework, and there was this _woman_ who sat across from me, but I was doing my math work, so there was _no way_ I was taking my mind off of that, but when I finished, I looked up and _guess who it was?_ "

Peter took the bait. "Who?"

She grinned widely and leaned in a bit closer as if telling them a life-changing secret (though, really, it kinda _was_ ). " _Pepper Potts."_

MJ's hands grasped the bench so hard her knuckles turned white as she whirled to face (Y/n). "Shut the hell up! No way!" 

Peter and Ned both said nothing (probably because instead they were just gaping in awe).

(Y/n) grinned and nodded. "Oh, it's true, dude. She brought me up to her office and taught me all this shit about Stark Industries and took me to get my card, er, badge, I guess, and everything."

Ned's eyes widened a bit. "You got a _badge?_ Do you have it with you?"

She nodded.

An eager smile appeared on his lips. "Can we see it?"

(Y/n) pulled off her backpack, opened the front pocket, and then opened a smaller pocket _inside_ that pocket ( _whoa, pocket-ception_ , Peter thought). She extracted a small card from within and held it out for them to see.

The card was colored half in white (on the left), half in cornflower blue (on the right). In the bottom left corner, there was the small words ' _Head Intern_ '. The _top_ left corner held (Y/n)'s first initial followed by her last name. The top right corner, the only bit of writing on the blue side, was filled only with the black number ' _6_ '.

"That is _so cool_ ," MJ breathed, taking the card in her hands without asking ( _like she needs to ask,_ Peter thought with amusement).

Peter remembered a time when he had had his _own_ card. For when he went in the normal entrance. Half the time, when at the Compound, Peter would just crawl through a window and _scare the living shit out of Mr. Stark_. Peter's card had been Level 11, the second-to-highest card. Peter wondered sometimes about if Mr. Stark and Ms. Potts ever had a kid. If they did, would that kid get Level 12? Probably. Mr. Stark had once told him during a time in the lab that was _way_ past Pepper's bedtime for them that the only reason Peter hadn't gotten a Level 12 was that he, for one, didn't _live_ in the Compound (even if it _felt_ like that sometimes) and, two, Tony said that Peter had such an insatiable curiosity that he couldn't trust that he wouldn't go in somewhere he wasn't allowed. So, yeah, no All-Access pass for poor Peter because of a few logistics. 

Stupid _logistics_.

"Head-Intern?" Ned read when the card was passed to him, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked down at it before passing it to Peter. "What does that mean?" Ned glanced at Peter who shrugged. It had been a while since he had been in the _know_ with things in Stark Industries, and, even then, he had spent much more time solely with Mr. Stark than with the company as a whole.

(Y/n)'s small smile that had been present as she had watched her friends pass the card around grew wider. She reached back into the backpack and pulled out a thin booklet. She showed it to them, and Peter read the words ' _The Hopefully Pretty Quick Guide to Stark Industries_ ' on the front. Peter remembered reading through the February 2018 update when Pepper asked him to look over it for him. This one looked to be for September 2017, though.

(Y/n) flipped to one of the first pages after bringing it back to sit in her lap. "There are eight divisions, and each one has a Head. Each Head has their own personal intern called a Head Intern."

MJ raised an eyebrow and a small smirk appeared. "So, what, you're one of _eight_ special interns?" She let out a light laugh. "Only you would manage to do that while still in _high school_."

(Y/n)'s cheeks darkened a bit as she slowly closed the booklet and slipped it back inside the bag. "Well, _technically_ I'm one of _nine_ Head-Interns."

Peter blinked. He had known of the eight Head-Interns, and he also knew that there had _never_ been _nine_. " _Nine_ _?_ But there are only eight Heads? Who are _you_ interning for?"

The color on (Y/n)'s face deepened even more. She turned her head down a bit, staring toward the grounds as she muttered something so quietly that MJ clearly couldn't hear it. Peter blessed his enhanced hearing as he managed to pick up on the words she muttered. 

Peter shot up to his feet, suddenly, his eyes widening, his heart pounding. "Shut the _hell_ up," he said, staring into his friend's eyes as she looked up. "Are you _serious?_ Holy _shit_ , dude. Are you _serious?_ " His words were breathy near the end.

"You and your stupid enhanced hearing," MJ said, reaching over to whack Peter on the shoulder. "C'mon, who are you interning for? Can't just leave us out of the mix just cause _we_ don't happen to be blessed with enhanced senses."

(Y/n) cleared her throat (and her face was so red she might as well just be cosplaying a tomato) and blinked a few times before saying, "I'm, uh, I'm interning for Tony Stark."

Ned choked on air as MJ full-on snorted. 

"I can't _believe_ that. I honestly _can't_. You have _such_ a weird life, (Y/n), I just... God, I _hate_ you sometimes," MJ said between small chuckles. "Seriously, you're the worst, the _worst_."

Ned finally found his voice and asked, "Wait, _seriously?_ You're interning for _Tony Stark?_ Like, _the_ Tony Stark?" (Y/n) gave a quick nod in confirmation. Ned leaned back a bit, his hands on his knees. "Holy _shit,_ man, are you _kidding_ me? That's... That's _insane_." Ned paused for a moment before adding, "I'm... I'm not _surprised,_ though. Really, I'm not!" He defended himself when (Y/n) raised an eyebrow at his last statement. "Your entire life is _full_ of crazy shit! I'm not really that surprised that _this_ happened, too." After a moment, he put in one more, small, addition. "But, you know, if anyone deserves to be the personal intern of _Tony Stark_ , I think it's you."

Peter watched (Y/n)'s face redden more, but her eyes flicked to him immediately. As if searching for his _agreement_. She was looking for him to either _agree_ with Ned or _argue_ against it. She wanted to know if _Peter_ , the only one here who ever got _truly_ close to Tony, thought that she _deserved_ to be Toyn's personal intern. Peter's throat was dry. After a moment of staring into her sharp (e/c) eyes, Peter cracked a small smile and nodded firmly to her.

He watched her sag in relief just a bit, and a smile appeared on her face too. She turned back to the other two, addressing them as a whole instead of staring at Peter specifically.

"Yeah, I know, I got so freaked out when I first found out that I literally had purple magic coming out of my fingers." At the looks she was getting, she winced and said, "That sounded... wrong..."

There was a wave of laughter that went over the group.

Ned's phone suddenly vibrated. "That's probably my mom," Ned said, picking up the phone. He nodded after a moment. "Yeah, just her." He moved to put the phone back down before stopping, his eyebrows furrowing. He moved the phone back into view and the screen flickered on. Peter watched Ned's eyes widened.

"Uh, we've got five minutes."

Peter had never seen anyone stand up as fast as his three friends did.

}---{

"Okay, so here's the plan," (Y/n) said after she and Peter had waved goodbye to MJ and Ned and left Decathlon.

"Lay it on me."

"You go on patrol for a few hours while I go to do a few hours of work at my internship, right?"

Peter nodded.

"If there are any emergencies, you let me know." Peter nodded a bit more hesitantly at that and (Y/n) narrowed her eyes, jabbing a finger at his chest. "Seriously. If I find out there was an emergency of any kind and you didn't call me, I will personally come and kill you myself." Peter nodded a bit more frantically this time. She smiled and backed down. "Good."

"Okay, so what's next?" Peter asked as they turned a corner, the looming figure of the Tower in the distance casting a shadow over them as they walked.

"All right, so I text you when I'm leaving my internship and you let me know where you are."

Peter gave another nod. "Sounds good."

"I meet up with you, we patrol for a few more hours and then head home for homework and food and stuff."

"Life necessities, yes, those are important," Peter agreed.

"Sound good?"

"Yep," Peter said. 

(Y/n) sighed. "Hopefully we can figure out a better method in the future. You know, to, like, make it so that you don't have to do more of the patroling."

Peter shrugged. "It's fine, dude. I've been doing this on my own for forever."

(Y/n) glared at him. "That's exactly _why_ we have to patrol the same amount! If we're gonna be presenting ourselves as partners, we gotta _look_ like partners."

"You're making this sound like we're acting," Peter chuckled. He threw an arm around his friend. "Chill out, man. We'll be fine. People will listen to us if we tell them we're partners."

(Y/n) shrugged his arm off of her shoulders and pulled out her phone. She jabbed at the screen before clicking on something and reading from the article she had pulled up.

"Here we go. Blah, blah, blah, _Spider-Man and his new_ sidekick _, Supernova, pictured here_... See what I mean?"

Peter snatched the phone from her and, sure enough, the article labeled Supernova as his partner. He shoved the phone back at her. "Whatever, that's just one article."

She raised up the phone in a slightly threatening manner. "Do you really wanna fight me on this, Peter? Cause you're _not_ gonna win."

Peter swallowed and raised his hands in defeat. "All right, all right, we can figure something out."

A soft smile appeared on her face, and he had to admit that it looked much better than the glare that had previously been there. "Thanks, Peter."

He felt his face heat and gave a nod. "Yeah, yeah, any time, you know..."

Her smile brightened a bit and she took his hand to pull him across the crosswalk as the light turned green, cars rushing past their right side.

After another few minutes, they had reached the front doors of Stark Tower (newly re-named). Peter turned to (Y/n) and gave a small smile. "Good luck."

She stared at him for a moment before jumping at him, catching him in an embrace. When she pulled away, she offered a nervous smile and nodded. "Thanks."

"See ya tonight."

"Bye."

Peter watched as (Y/n) turned, her shoulders moving with the large breath she took in before she took a step toward the doors, grabbing the handle, pulling it open, and stepping inside.

He watched through the glass as she moved toward the front desk before he turned, took in a breath, and continued down the street.

}---{

(Y/n) stepped out of the crisp air of the outside into the warmer air of the Stark Tower lobby. She, involuntarily, began to wring her hands together. The backpack felt strangely heavy as it weighed down on her shoulders. She scanned the lobby, and it felt like it had yesterday when she had stood just as lost. After a moment, she noticed the same woman at the front desk as had yesterday. (Y/n) moved to walk toward the woman. _What was her name...?_

 _Georgia_ , the nametag read when she got close enough. _That was it_.

"Uh, hi," (Y/n) said when she got to the front desk.

Georgia looked up and cracked a gentle smile. "Hello, honey." Her eyebrows furrowed a bit. "Do I know you?"

"Er, I was in here yesterday. I'm a... a new intern..."

Georgia nodded. "Ah, that was it. Yes, yes, I remember you. What do you need?"

"I... uh... I don't know... what to do...?"

"All right, then. You have a card, I'm assuming?"

(Y/n) nodded and pulled off her backpack, holding it up in front of herself to open the front pocket and grab her card. She pulled it out and handed it over to Georgia.

Georgia looked down at it and raised an eyebrow. "Head-Intern, hm?" (Y/n)'s cheeks heated and she nodded. "Very nice... Who do you intern for?"

(Y/n) squirmed a bit, her face warming even more as Georgia went to check her in before the girl said quietly, "Mr. Stark."

Georgia actually dropped the card on the desk in front of her in her shock as she whirled to look at (Y/n). "You're interning for _Tony Stark?_ " She breathed, though it was thankfully quiet, so no one else heard.

(Y/n) nodded slowly. "That's why Miss Potts came to get me herself yesterday."

Georgia blinked, leaning back a bit, her hands gripping the desk in front of her. "That makes sense, that makes sense, I was _wondering_ why our _CEO_ came to get a new intern herself."

"Yeah..."

"Well, you have fun with that," Georgia said. She picked up the card and held it out to (Y/n). "Now, since you're a Head-Intern, once you have your first private session with your Head, which I guess, in your case, is Dr. Stark, you'll be _fully_ entered in the database. I guess you're also an Inter-Intern in a way, so that's _probably_ how it's going to work. So, basically, every time you've spent your first full week in one of your assigned Divisions, the Head of said Division will log it into the database, and you'll be locked down for that. After you've spent all those weeks in your assigned Divisions, you'll be up with Dr. Stark, and that meeting will be logged, and then the set-up and confirmation of your file in the database will be completed.

"Once _that_ happens, FRIDAY will sign you in as you go through security. If you don't have an official badge and go through security, an alarm will go off, so... don't... do that..." Georgia pursed her lips. "Trust me, I've been there."

"Then how did it not go off yesterday?"

"You were on the list," Georgia said. "So I signed you in yesterday when you came up here."

(Y/n) blinked. "So... before I have my first meeting with... with Mr., er, Dr. Stark... how do I sign in?"

Georgia shifted a bit. "Ah, yes, you'll just come up here and sign in with whoever is at the front desk, whether that's me or someone else."

(Y/n) nodded. "All right. So... am I signed in for the day?"

"Yes, you are," Georgia chuckled. "You're good to go for security."

"Thank you."

(Y/n) tucked her card into the pocket of her hoodie, gave a smile to Georgia who returned it with a nod, and moved toward security. 

The man sorted through her backpack for a moment as she stepped through the metal detector before he nodded to her, handed her the bag back, and gestured her forward.

There was a small touchscreen on the wall between the many elevators with just a single option: ' _Call Elevator_ '. (Y/n) touched it, and the blue button turned green. She stepped back and waited.

After a few moments, there was a figure that appeared beside her. (Y/n) jumped a bit at the sudden appearance of the person.

" _Hold the elevator!_ " the person called. They looked to be a young woman, with choppy brown hair that fell to her shoulders and a spray of freckles across her long nose. 

(Y/n) watched as the woman skidded to a stop a few feet away from her. The woman's flashing amber eyes flew to the green button shining on the screen and she suddenly seemed to sag in relief. "Oh, thank _God_ ," the woman breathed out, standing up to adjust the lanyard hanging around her neck. (Y/n) peered at it for the moment she saw it. The color part of it was bright green (not that (Y/n) could remember what that stood for, anyway), and the number in the top right corner was _3_. In the top left corner, it read _S. Traice_ while the _bottom_ left corner said, _Intern_. Okay, so she was an _intern_ , then.

The woman must have noticed her staring because those flashing amber eyes were suddenly on her. (Y/n) tried to sink into herself a bit and took a small step back.

Suddenly, the freckles on the woman's face were moving as she broke into a grin. 

"Hey, haven't seen you around before, you new?" (Y/n) stared in shock for a moment before the woman laughed. "Sorry, sorry, it would make sense if I hadn't seen you before, there are _thousands_ of people working here, I only know a lot of the interns, and even then it's only by name unless they're in my Division, but, still, you look really young, so I thought maybe..." She trailed off before shaking her head. "Sorry, sorry, that was weird. Let's start over." The woman held a hand out. "I'm Sara Traice, Intern in the Biology and Environmental Sciences Division, nice to meetcha."

(Y/n) hesitantly took the hand and shook it. "I'm, er, I'm (Y/n) (L/n). I'm a new intern."

The amber eyes twinkle at her. "Cool. You don't have a lanyard for your card, I'm guessing?"

(Y/n) shook her head.

"Well, you know, employees and interns get lanyards from the gift shop for free. I've got a bit of time. We could go there and grab one if you want?"

(Y/n) nodded. "That'd... That'd be nice, thank you."

Sara grinned. "No problem. I've been an intern for three years, and I _still_ remember how often those first few weeks were. I'd love to help."

An elevator dinged a few feet to the right. Sara stepped past (Y/n) and gave a small wave for her to follow. The teen scrambled after Sara and into the elevator.

Sara was scrolling through a list on a touchscreen inside the elevator, selecting the one that read ' _Gift Shop/Museum_ '. 

"Your lanyard's gonna match your card color," Sara said. "If you want, like, a unique one, it costs money. The free ones match your card color, like mine." She raised her lanyard, and (Y/n) suddenly realized that it was half white, half green, like Sara's card dangling from the end of it. The elevator dinged and the doors opened. "So you might wanna have your card out."

(Y/n) fingered her card in the pocket of her hoodie as she followed Sara out of the elevator.

The gift shop was almost directly outside of where the elevators all sat. Right at the entrance, the museum being past it. _Right at the entrance... or right at the exit. People can easily grab something on the way out. Good strategy_.

(Y/n) went into the gift shop and left Sara waiting outside. She got her lanyard, a half-white, half-cornflower-blue one to match her card, and emerged just a few moments later.

"Holy _shit,_ dude, you're a _Head-Intern?_ But you're like, twelve!"

(Y/n)'s face darkened and she fiddled with the card now hanging from around her neck. "I'm _fourteen_."

Sara blinked. " _Fourteen?_ Dude, I was _kidding!_ You're like a _baby!_ "

"Shut up."

Sara chuckled, shaking her head as she began to move back toward the elevators. "A high-schooler. A real high school intern. A _Head-Intern._ I can't believe that. Holy _shit_." She jabbed at the button on the screen by the elevators to call an elevator and turned back to face (Y/n). "I'm twenty-two and I thought _I_ was young." Sara blinked. "Who are you even interning for?"

(Y/n) felt her face heat again, like when she had spoken to Georgia, and she looked to the floor before saying, "Tony Stark."

There was a silence, and when (Y/n) looked back up she saw Sara just staring with blank eyes. After a moment, Sara said, "Well, out of everything you could have said, that was _not_ what I expected."

An elevator dinged and they stepped inside.

"Where are you heading?"

"Uh, Biology and Environmental Sciences."

Sara nodded sagely. "The best Division." She pressed on ' _Biology and Environmental Sciences Division_ ' on the screen and then selected ' _Labs_ ' in the new list that opened.

The elevator began to move up smoothly (much nicer than the one in her own apartment building, she noticed. Obviously). (Y/n)'s mouth was dry and she took a moment to find her voice. Finally, she said, "Please don't tell anyone who I'm interning for."

Sara raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I just... I want to prove myself without any sort of reputation proceeding me."

Sara nodded. "I get that."

The elevator dinged and Sara suddenly broke out in a wide grin, turning and placing a hand on (Y/n)'s shoulder, guiding her out the elevator, around the corner, and to the front of the labs.

"Let me be the first to introduce you to the Biology and Environmental Sciences Division of Stark Industries," Sara said. After a moment, she added, "That sounded like exposition or something for a book or a movie."

(Y/n) snorted and nodded. "Yeah. It kinda did."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter: i need the teaaaaaa
> 
> (Y/n): no
> 
> Peter: teeaaaaaaa
> 
> (Y/n): no
> 
> Peter: tEeEeEaAaAaAaAa
> 
> (Y/n): if you dont shut up i will punch you
> 
> (Y/n): so heres the tea
> 
> Peter: supa hearin
> 
> (Y/n): im tonys intern
> 
> Peter: holy shit
> 
> MJ: holy shit
> 
> Ned: holy shit
> 
> Georgia: holy shit
> 
> Sara: holy shit
> 
> Every person to ever find this out: holy shit
> 
> (Y/n): ooh a lanyard
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here!
> 
> So, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, this chapter is late. Sorry. My bad. I've been coming back from and then going on new vacations left and right, and school starts in like a week or something, and I'm tired. Oops. Sorry.
> 
> Either way, this was late. I know. Next time, though, we get to see (Y/n) figuring out what the hell she's supposed to do in this internship thing. Yeah. 
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoyed. I tried. I'm tired. Just... I know this wasn't the most exciting chapter, but I'm a person who focuses on character, and I'm a person who uses interactions to get to a new conflict. Which we'll be getting to soon. Promise.
> 
> Also, I know that I need to announce the winners of the second fan-art contest, but there are SO MANY ENTRIES. I'm still working through them. Hopefully, I'll get it out in the next week.
> 
> That's about all for now, though.
> 
> Bye, bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!


	8. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which scientists overthink things and (Y/n) is forced to remember that being a hero isn't all fun and games.

"Where, er, where are you taking me, exactly?" (Y/n) asked for the third time that minute as Sara dragged her through the halls of the labs in the Biology and Environmental Sciences Division.

"Shut it, Tiny, I'm trying to focus," Sara said, not looking back at the girl. (Y/n) huffed.

"I am not _tiny_. I'm a perfectly normal height for my age. You can only be a few inches taller than me, if anything."

Sara actually looked to her and smiled smugly. "Sure, but you're _younger_. You can't even _smoke_ yet. So, shut it, you're tiny. I win, case closed."

(Y/n) tightened her lips together into a thin line and bit down on her tongue to keep herself from coming up with some sort of retort.

"Come on, come on, oh! _Finally_. There she is." Sara raised her voice and waved with her free hand down the hallway. " _Bella!_ "

A young woman in the middle of what seemed to be a heated conversation with a scientist turned toward them at Sara's call. She gave the scientist a few more words and a curt nod before she moved briskly toward them.

As she approached, (Y/n) got a really good look at her. She seemed to be around Sara's age, maybe a bit older, with slightly tanned skin, dark brown hair pulled up in a messy bun, and shining green eyes. There was no lanyard dangling around her neck, but by the way she carried herself, it was clear that she _knew_ that she belonged here. Instead of wearing a lab coat like most people they had passed were, though, she was instead donning a black hoodie with an _adorable_ cartoon wolf on it that seemed a few sizes too big, jean shorts that were ripped along the bottom, and _V_ _ans_. A few[ piercings](https://www.byrdie.com/thmb/ko6cPnd6XHY7lCq_g5FhsB7pvF4=/700x700/filters:no_upscale\(\):max_bytes\(150000\):strip_icc\(\)/cdn.cliqueinc.com__cache__posts__246085__ear-piercings-types-246085-1515427995706-main.700x0c-06dab86b60df4861a72628e35d73e1ca.jpg) shimmered on her ears. There was a spray of freckles over her face and, most noticeably, a jagged scar over her left cheek. (Y/n) made a note to not mention that.

"Hey-o, how's the coolest person in the world?" The woman said when she was finally in front of them. As she stood in place, her foot tapped against the ground, seemingly involuntarily.

"I don't know, how are you?" Sara replied smoothly. The other woman gave her a grin and mimed throwing a lock of hair over her shoulder.

"As awesome as ever." The woman's eyes turned to (Y/n) and she gasped. "Sara! Have you replaced me?"

Sara nodded seriously. "Yep. I can only have one tiny intern, and, if I'm being honest, (Y/n) is better company than you."

"How?"

"She talks less, for starters."

The woman crossed her arms. "Fine, whatever, can I at least get the coffee maker in the divorce?"

"The coffee maker _I_ bought?"

"Stop bullying me!"

(Y/n)'s gaze flicked between them and she felt wave after wave of utter _confusion_ wash over her. If they were just talking like normal, she would probably be looking through the glass into the labs on either side as she had been the entire walk through the halls to get here, watching whatever experiment was being run inside.

"I have... no idea what's going on," she said after a moment of the two women exchanging banter.

The new woman turned to her and gasped again. "Oh, who are you!"

"Bella, this is (Y/n), a new intern. (Y/n), this is Bella, resident coffee enthusiast, and dog extraordinaire."

"Bella Chapman, nice to meet you," Bella said, thrusting out her hand for (Y/n) to shake.

"(Y/n). (Y/n) (L/n). Nice to... meet you too?"

Bella shook her hand _really_ hard, and (Y/n) silently massaged her wrist when her hand was released.

"So, why did you bring my replacement along?" Bella asked, turning back to Sara. The foot-tapping increased a bit.

"She's gotta talk to Dr. Styll."

"Ooh, why?" Bella's gaze turned back to (Y/n) for a moment.

"Uh..." Before she could answer, Bella interrupted her.

"Wait! You said, new intern! But... But initiation already happened for the month, so..." Bella's gaze flew to (Y/n)'s lanyard and she gasped. "A new _Head Intern?_ Wait..." She turned back to Sara, her eyes wide. "You really _did_ bring my replacement!"

"What... What do you mean?" (Y/n) asked, meeting Bella's eyes as the older one turned back to her.

"Look at the lanyard, sweetie," Bella said, a smirk appearing on her face as she puffed out her chest. The lanyard wasn't there.

Sara snorted. "Bella, honey, you're not _wearing_ your lanyard."

Bella looked down and her eyes widened a bit. Her face turned red and the foot-tapping increased again for a moment. "Oh, yeah, I'm not." She reached into the pocket of her hoodie and pulled out a lanyard that was the same color as the one that was dangling around (Y/n)'s own neck.

(Y/n) blinked at the thing in awe as Bella swung it over her neck. "Whoa... You're..."

"Bella Chapman, resident coffee enthusiast, dog extraordinaire, and Head Intern of the Biology and Environmental Sciences Division," she replied, a grin in place again as she tapped on the card hanging over her chest. "It works better with the card, doesn't it?"

Sara nodded. "It works better with the card."

"All right, so you've brought my replacement-"

"Not your replacement," Sara interjected, but Bella continued on as if she hadn't said anything.

"-And you want me to, what, bring her to Dr. Styll?"

"Yep," Sara nodded. "Well, she's _not_ your replacement, but you do need to bring her to Dr. Styll."

"If she's not my replacement, who is she?" Bella asked, crossing her arms and looking down at (Y/n).

(Y/n) squirmed a bit under her gaze before saying, "I'm, er, I'm Tony Stark's intern."

Bella froze and then grinned, looking from Sara to (Y/n) and back again. "Holy shit, _what_?"

(Y/n) was very interested in her feet all of a sudden as she nodded. "Yeah. I have to spend a week in each Division before I can work with him, so I'm starting with Biology and Environmental Sciences."

Bella started to literally bounce in place on the balls of her feet. "Okay, that's awesome. Like, _the coolest_." She glanced at Sara. "Should I bow? I feel like I should bow."

(Y/n)'s face heated. "Don't... Don't bow, please."

Bella bowed. "Your wish is my command." When she straightened again, she had a cheeky grin in place on her face. "All right, let's get you to Dr. Styll, then. You're lucky you met the one intern who could possibly convince me to take you to them with so few words."

Sara scowled, though it wasn't very real, and nudged Bella in the shoulder a bit before pecking her on the cheek. "Get out of here, you nerd, I've gotta head to work and you're distracting me."

Bella sighed but nodded. "Fine, fine, go do your Genetics shit or whatever."

Sara grinned, gave Bella another kiss on the cheek and (Y/n) a pat on the shoulder and then disappeared down the hallway.

"So," Bella said, "Let's get you to Dr. Styll."

(Y/n) followed Bella through the halls even further, and soon enough, the glass walls looking into labs turned into normal walls that led into offices and conference rooms.

"All right, so, info about our wonderful Head here in Bio and E.S.," Bella said after a moment of silence. "Their name's Avery Styll, they're non-binary, use they/them pronouns, and now that you know that, you make sure to never misgender them purposefully because they'll ruin your career in two seconds and you'll never be heard from again."

(Y/n) nodded, remembering the information she was being told in the book that she was given the day before. It had said about the information that Bella had just given her.

"Additionally, Dr. Styll only drinks tea, so never coffee, they love blondies, not brownies, _blondies_ , and, if given the chance, they _will_ rant for hours about what further steps need to be taken if we are to save the ecosystems of the planet."

"I can respect all of that," (Y/n) said, suddenly thinking about the possibility of looking up how to make blondies that she could bring in one day. She _did_ want to improve her baking skills, after all. Wait, would that be sucking up to the Head? Would that be considered _bad_?

"Nah, Dr. Styll always accepts desserts. People don't make them for them a lot, so it's sort of a welcome thing," Bella said as they turned a corner. (Y/n) stared at her. Had she said that out loud?

"Yep," Bella nodded. She turned and grinned at (Y/n). "You said _that_ out loud, too."

(Y/n) flushed and stayed silent.

"Here we are," Bella said, holding her arms out to gesture widely to the door in front of them. The plaque on it read, ' _Dr. A. Styll, Head of Bio. and E.S._ '.

Bella knocked on the door twice and waited a moment. No sound came from it. She nodded and opened it wide.

"Hey, Dr. Styll," she said, stepping into the room as if she owned the place. (Y/n) followed with a surprisingly low amount of hesitation.

The person at the desk looked up when they entered the room. Avery Styll had short blond hair done in a pixie cut, shining brown eyes, and glasses that were so big (Y/n) wondered how they stayed perched on their nose.

"Bella," Styll nodded in acknowledgment. Their eyes moved to (Y/n) and they raised an eyebrow. "Who's this?"

"This is (Y/n), Dr. Styll," Bella said, placing a hand on (Y/n)'s back and pushing her forward a bit. 

Styll reached out a hand and (Y/n) hesitantly shook it, shaking it twice before letting her hand fall back to her side.

"Nice to meet you, (Y/n)," Styll said. They turned to Bella. "What is she doing here?"

"You know what, I think (Y/n) can tell you that."

(Y/n) turned to Bella for a moment in horror before swallowing her fears and turning back to Styll in front of her. "I'm, er, I'm Tony Stark's intern. Miss Potts said she was going to send you an e-mail or something, I think."

Styll raised an eyebrow. " _You're_ (Y/n) (L/n)?"

(Y/n) bit her lip and nodded.

"How old are you?"

"I'm, er, I'm fourteen." After a moment, she added, "I'm a sophomore at Midtown Tech."

Styll sat back in their seat and stared at her. "A _high-schooler?_ The personal intern of _Tony Stark?_ "

(Y/n) shifted a bit under their gaze and nodded. "Miss Potts said they wanted to, uh, 'snatch me up as early as possible'?"

Styll nodded. "All right. All right." They ran a hand down their face before sitting back up, a soft smile appearing on their lips. "So, we have you for a week, correct?"

(Y/n) shook her head. "Sunday's my last day."

Styll made a face. "All right, well, we have 13 Sub-Divisions here in Bio and E.S. It would be ideal for you to work for a time in every one of them. Let's see." They mouthed some words to themselves while counting something on their fingers before saying, "You could work in one division today, two every weekday for the rest of the week, then three each day over the weekend, if you want to try and get through every Sub-Division."

(Y/n) thought it over for a moment before nodding firmly. "That sounds good."

Styll clapped their hands together and a calm smile fell into place. "Wonderful. Bella, if you could bring (Y/n) here to whatever Sub-Division she would like to go to first?"

Bella nodded. "I can do that. See ya' in a bit, Dr. Styll."

Styll waved her off. "Go on, now." They turned to (Y/n). "I'll see you at the end of Sunday after you've worked in your last Sub-Division. We can talk for a bit and then I'll sign you off in the system for your week and you can head off to work in your next Division of your choosing."

(Y/n) nodded and gave a small wave before following Bella out of the office, the young woman closing the door behind them.

"So," Bella said, turning to face (Y/n). "Where to, Tiny?"

(Y/n) stared at Bella for a long moment before reaching back and pulling off her bag, holding it up in front of herself and shifting through the front pocket until she pulled out the guide. She opened it, very much aware of Bella's eyes on her, and flipped to Biology and Environmental Sciences. In hopes of getting Bella's eyes off of her, she immediately read off the first Sub-Division listed. "Um... Genetics."

Bella grinned and patted her on the shoulder. "Good choice. That's where Sara works. I'll take any excuse to see my girl during work hours if you couldn't tell."

(Y/n) smiled hesitantly and couldn't resist snorting at the look on Bella's face.

"All right, well, let's go! Genetics is at the very bottom of this Division, so to the elevators we go!"

The way down to the Genetics Sub-Division wasn't filled with very much talk on (Y/n)'s part, and the void was completely filled with Bella spouting off random facts that she knew, and then gushing about wolves, and then talking about her life, and then gushing about wolves _again_.

"Did you know they have forty-two teeth on average? They just _tear_ into that meat," Bella was saying as they stepped out of the elevator.

"That's cool," (Y/n) said off-handedly, nodding along with the woman beside her. She wasn't retaining _any_ of these wolf facts anymore, after hearing fact after fact for like ten minutes straight.

Bella slid her badge to open the doors into the side of the floor with the word 'GENETICS' above it.

"Since you're a Head Intern, and-" Her voice dropped- "Tony Stark's personal intern-" It rose back to its normal volume- "You _should_ be able to unlock every main lab in the building. If you ever have trouble, just, I don't know, call security or something."

(Y/n) nodded, and hoped sincerely that she never had to call security over _not being able to enter a lab_.

Bella led (Y/n) inside of the Genetics Sub-Division, and once they passed the first room at the front, they were walking past the glass walls of laboratories again.

"The Director here is..." Bella thought for a moment before hopping up a bit on her toes and saying, "Bree! Williams! Bree Williams!" She nodded. "Yeah, yeah. She's pretty cool, I guess. I mean, you're just gonna see her for today, but..." She turned to a passing employee. "Hey, dude, do you know where Ms. Williams is?"

The man looked down his nose at her despite the fact that his card had the number _5_ in the corner, meaning he was a low-level employee and a level _below_ them. Thankfully, he answered nonetheless. "She's in Lab 5 working with some of the employees and interns on an issue that they're having with the newest version of an artificial gene."

If he was trying to faze her, he failed, because all Bella did was grin, pat the older man on the shoulder and give quick thanks, and then guide (Y/n) farther down the hallway.

"I hate assholes like that guy," Bella muttered when they were out of earshot. "Think just because I'm _younger_ that they're better than me!"

(Y/n) stayed silent, but nodded her agreement.

"All right, here we are!" Bella swiped her card again and the two entered Lab 6 of the Genetics Sub-Division. "Ms. Williams is probably over there." Bella pointed to where there was a congregation of people off on the right end of the lab, all crowded around a whiteboard and arguing adamantly with one another. Suddenly, Bella exclaimed, "Oh, shit, Sara!"

Sara, who was on the other end of the lab, turned around at her name and the two moved toward each other as if they hadn't just talked less than thirty minutes ago.

"You go wait for them to finish arguing and then find Ms. Williams," Bella said, waving (Y/n) away.

"But-"

"You gotta be independent in this business, Tiny," Bella said, throwing her a cheeky grin. Now that (Y/n) was thinking about it, that 'cheeky' grin seemed to be the only smile Bella was capable of making.

When Bella turned back to Sara, (Y/n) accepted in her heart that she wasn't going to get another word in. So, she steeled her resolve, turned, and moved slowly toward the large group of people at the other end of the lab.

Half the people wore lab coats, the other half didn't, but there was a variety of lanyard and card colors in the fray, and an even wider variety of _people_ , all talking over one another, and (Y/n) found herself wondering how anyone ever got _anything_ done here.

She thanked her small size at that moment as she set her bag down against the leg of a random empty table and then squeezed past some of the people to be able to see what they were all surrounding.

What (Y/n) had thought was a whiteboard was actually some sort of holographic screen against the wall, projecting whatever work was being done on the table below. It was like someone would draw on the screen on the table and that would appear on the screen on the wall. If she wasn't distracted by the argument happening, (Y/n) might have been completely and utterly fascinated by the technology.

The people surrounding the table were all arguing over something that was on screen. It looked like the DNA models that (Y/n) had seen in her advanced biology class the year before, and then in MJ's work that she was doing at lunch just yesterday. The DNA didn't seem to want to fit together properly, and the work that they were doing just... didn't seem to... work.

The people in the crowd around her were yelling out their two-cents as well, but (Y/n) turned them out as best she could without her sound-blocking devices in (she had left them at home because she didn't want to risk any problems with security over them) in favor of looking closer at the DNA strands that were put up on the screen.

She furrowed her eyebrows and thought back to what she remembered from the DNA unit last year.

Adenine goes with Thymine, Cytosine goes with Guanine.

That was when it clicked.

All of the advanced solutions that were being yelled out didn't matter, because all these _genius_ people were overthinking the issue.

The only problem was that they were trying to match up Cytosine with Adenine in one spot when those two didn't go together. 

It was that simple.

"The bases are wrong," she said, and maybe it was too loud, or maybe people were just surprised she was there because all eyes were suddenly on her.

"What did you say?" A woman asked, and one glance at her nametag told (Y/n) that _this_ was the Director of this Genetics Sub-Division. Bree Williams.

"Uh..." (Y/n) bit her lip, very aware of all eyes on her. She reached forward hesitantly and pointed a slightly shaking finger at the spot with the incorrect bases. "The bases are wrong here. Cytosine and Adenine don't go together. It should either Guanine instead of Adenine or Thymine instead of Cytosine." Her voice died out a bit at the end.

Williams turned her eyes off of (Y/n) to instead look down at the screen. Her fingers moved across it quickly, then, and suddenly the bases were switched and the DNA melded together, spinning around as if it was doing a dance on the screen.

Williams grinned and looked up at (Y/n). "Well, hell, kid, welcome to Genetics, I guess."

There was a round of clapping (these people all seemed very enthusiastic about their work) and (Y/n)'s face heated and she smiled lightly.

Maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

}---{

(Y/n) left at 6:30 that evening, two-and-a-half hours after she had first signed in, feeling surprisingly excited to go in the next day. She managed to get home at seven, spent only an hour on her homework, changed, sent a quick text to Peter, and then shot out her window and flew to the roof of the building she and Peter had agreed to meet upon for patrol every day.

"Nova!"

Speak of the devil.

"Hey, Spidey," (Y/n) said, turning toward her masked friend as he catapulted himself over the street and landed on the roof next to her in a little roll.

"How was work?" He asked, taking a seat next to her and whipping out a soft pretzel from who-knows-where, offering her half (which she gladly accepted).

"Really cool, not gonna lie," (Y/n) responded in between bites. "This is really freaking good by the way."

"I know."

"But, seriously, it was cool. I, like, solved a problem that they couldn't figure out in this one place, so that was cool. Met this girl who was obsessed with dogs. Met people who are way too important in the science community to waste their time talking with me-"

"Oh, shut up," Peter said, nudging her in the shoulder a bit.

(Y/n) shoved him off of her and laughed lightly. "Yeah, well, it's true." She swallowed the last bit of her snack and stood up. "We should probably start patrol."

Peter nodded. "Yeah, we should."

The two exchanged nods before shooting off over the streets and then diverging at the first intersection, as they had the last time they did this.

They were on the fourth street when (Y/n) glanced into an alley and immediately felt her blood run cold.

The fight was over rather quickly. Mostly because there _wasn't_ a fight. Three masked people flew at her and (Y/n) threw them off as best she could, but when the scuffle was over, there were only two there. The final man, who she assumed was the leader, was gone.

(Y/n) fumbled for her phone, ignoring the pounding in her chest, and called Peter.

"Spidey," she said as soon as he picked up. "My side. Fourth alley on the left. Now."

He was there in two minutes, landing behind (Y/n) as she knelt by the victim's side.

"He needs a hospital," she said without looking back at her friend. She willed the tears to stay back. This wasn't fun, this wasn't fun, this wasn't fun.

Peter nodded and called the police while (Y/n) ripped off a piece of fabric from the end of the injured man's shirt to wrap around the steadily bleeding wound on his arm.

"Would it be faster if we took him to the hospital ourselves?" (Y/n) asked, glancing back at the man who seemed to be delusional now from the pain. The sirens from the approaching police were there, but she could tell that they were still multiple blocks away.

"Definitely," Peter nodded. "Even if the traffic moves, we'll still get there faster."

"Okay."

Peter agreed to meet her at the hospital, staying behind to deal with the police while (Y/n), who was much more efficient when it came to transporting other people because she could do so without actually having to, well, _carry_ them.

(Y/n) tied the piece of fabric around the man's arm as tightly as she could and gave Peter a little salute, giving him a weak smile before she activated her powers, wrapped the magic around herself and the man, and pushed off into the air.

They moved as quickly as she dared, and the man was, thankfully, too out of it to be terrified of the fact that he was flying through the air hundreds of feet above the busy streets of the city.

From the moment she touched down at the hospital to when the nurses told both her and Peter that the man's family wanted to see them was all just a blur to (Y/n). She remembered standing outside of the hospital after handing over the man, waiting for Peter to arrive, and just sobbing and wondering whether or not she could have stopped any of this from happening if she had just ben a little faster. She remembered her best friend wrapping his arms around her, and she remembered him reassuring her that without her being there, the man probably would have bled out, with no chance of survival.

When they entered his room, the man's family thanked them profusely, as he was still unconscious, and then the doctor pulled them aside and passed over a hastily done drawing, explaining that it was what they had discovered the stab wound looked like.

(Y/n) felt a chill run down her spine as she stared down at the paper with Peter later that night as they sat in her living room together.

This was no run-of-the-mill attack. This was deliberate.

Because what had been carved into the man's arm, was not just a random bunch of stabs, but a picture. A purposeful picture.

A small sailboat, and the number five in the corner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sara: tiny
> 
> (Y/n): no
> 
> Sara: t i n y
> 
> Sara and Bella: *are in love*
> 
> (Y/n): ...
> 
> (Y/n): should i like leave or something?
> 
> Styll: finally the author can shout out her love for her non-binary pals! we love you!
> 
> (Y/n): ok but you all are being too smart its like so simple wtf
> 
> The People: you genius
> 
> (Y/n) and Peter: what a nice day here let's share a pretzel
> 
> Attack: *happens*
> 
> (Y/n): i hate everything this is the wrost job ever arghhhhh
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here!
> 
> So, it's been a while, but school started and stuff, and my stupid ass took advanced classes. Cause I'm stupid.
> 
> Anyway, the cameo for today was Bella, created by rasperrymilk as a prize for the first fan-art contest.
> 
> In other news...
> 
> WE REACHED 2,000 FAVORITES!!!!
> 
> AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHWFSPOFNWERBFWOEFNIUASBFPONEURBFEFNE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> I can't believe this, I really can't.
> 
> Literally, like, four-ish months ago we were celebrating 1,000 favorites, and now we're at 2,000! We doubled! What!
> 
> I'll think of something to do to celebrate soon enough. If you have any suggestions, let me know! I do want to do a cover of 'Wait For It' at one point, but I don't know when I would have a chance, and I know it wouldn't be good enough to celebrate this big of an achievement.
> 
> Anyway, that's all for now. I hope you enjoyed the chapter!
> 
> Bye, bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!


	9. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which (Y/n) has a weird dream and finds out some things that the reader already knows.

_"Hello?"_

_The darkness was heavy, the silence deafening. As soon as she spoke, the sound would vanish. She didn't remember how to see anymore. She didn't remember how to hear anymore. She didn't remember how to_ see _._

_She blinked and wondered if she had even needed to._

_Then, she did it again, and there was something in the silence. A tiny light, pulsing, beckoning her toward it._

_She moved, and she wondered if she was the one moving or if the light was instead. She kept going anyway._

_Should she try to speak?_

_She tried, she spoke, but no sound came out. Again._

_She moved a bit more._

_The light was in front of her now, just floating, brightening and dimming in rhythm. She felt her heart pounding, and realized, vaguely, that the light was beating in tandem with her heart._

_She reached out, and the light reflected off her skin. She could see her hand shining through the darkness. She put a single finger on the light and was blown backward._

_There was a rush of colors past her and she couldn't tell if she was flying through the universe or simply through a whirlwind of colors. The world seemed to flip and suddenly she was on the ground._

_She felt the cold rush of water over her skin. It covered her body, her face, and she opened her eyes to see a sheen of it over it, covering the sky from view._

_She scrambled to sit up. As soon as she broke from the water, she was dry. She furrowed her eyebrows and lifted her hand from the water. It was dry as it broke the surface but felt wet as soon as she put it back down. That was weird._

_She slowly stood up. Her clothes were dry, too. She glanced down at them, but couldn't remember for the life of her what they were called. Life? Was she alive? Or was she just dead? Was this what death was like? Was she dead?_

**_"No."_ **

_The sky glowed a brighter orange than the shade that it already was. She felt her heart jump. She realized that the light was gone. She must have left it behind during her journey through the universe. That was a bit upsetting._

_**"Why are you here?** _ _**"** _

_The world was covered in water and bathed in blue light from the sky. She opened her mouth and tried to speak._

_"I don't know. The light... The light brought me here."_

**_"The light did not bring you here. You did. Why are you here?"_ **

_The sky was yellow for a moment, and she didn't know how to answer. She didn't_ know _why she was here._

_**"Maybe that is because you are not really."** _

_The sky was electric blue for another moment._

_Was this thing able to read his thoughts? This sky? Was the sky a_ mind-reader _?_

_**"We read your thoughts."** _

_We? Was the sky more than one person?_

_**"Yes. And no."** _

_Yellow, Red, Blue, Orange, Purple, Green, they all flashed in quick succession._

_What was that supposed to mean?_

_She waited a moment for the sky to answer. It didn't, though. Seems like it wasn't going to give her the answer to that._

**_"That's correct."_ **

_Yellow._

_Why was she here, then? If she wasn't going to get any explanation, then why couldn't she just go home? Wait... where_ was _home? Did she have a home?_

_**"Everyone has a home, somewhere."** _

_Blue._

_That's super helpful. How was she supposed to know where her home was? How was she supposed to get there? Unless... Unless_ this _was her home. This expansion of nothingness. Of water and a sky that flashed colors and looked to be constantly locked in a sunset and that was it._

_**"This is not your home."** _

_Red._

_Well, then, why was she here?_

_**"You are not meant to be here, yet. You are not ready."** _

_Green._

_But how was she meant to get out of here? How was she meant to get home?_

_**"We will send you there."** _

_Blue._

_She wondered if she would ever be here again._

_**"One day. Not now. You are not ready."** _

_Purple._

_She lifted her hand from the water, and it didn't stay wet, and it was_ weird _. She was ready to go._

_**"Goodbye, (Y/n) (L/n). Until we meet again."** _

_Orange._

_(Y/n)? That was her name? It was. She knew it was._

_There was a flash of each of the six colors from before and then the ground seemed to crack beneath her feet. The water didn't move as the ground below it opened up, and she fell through. She slipped below the water and was in it for just a split-second before she fell below it. Looking up, the water stayed put, just floating. She watched as the ground seemed to reform, and the light that had been streaming through the water was suddenly completely gone as the rebuilt ground covered it._

_She was in darkness, but she could feel pressure on her chest. She was still moving._

_(Y/n) turned a bit and tried to look down. She saw flecks of darkness in the distance. She reached them, and soared past them, and realize that they were_ stars _. She was soaring through the universe. She was moving fast enough that the colors of everything around her seemed to blend together._

 _Then, suddenly, she slowed a bit, and it looked like the things that she was moving past were things that she_ recognized _. A deep blue-purple planet with swirls of darkness, a large yellow-brown one surrounded by thick rings, a smaller red one with visible mountains sticking up across its surface. She turned her head, trying to avoid looking at the blinding light floating in the distance. She wanted to stare at it, but you_ don't _look at the sun._

 _She turned a bit more and saw where she was approaching. It was Earth. She knew that._ That _was her home._

_She was moving down, down, down. It was dark on the side of the world she was on, but the lights from the cities made it easy to see._

_She moved again, and then she was flying down toward New York City. She raised her arms as she approached the roof of a building. However, she flew right through it, just_ fazed _through the stone._

 _She saw, well,_ herself _on the ground. Well, more like leaning against her friend, what was his name? He was propping her up on the floor of the apartment._ Her _apartment. Her hair was colorful. The dress she went off and saved people in was still on._

 _She stopped moving, just floating above her unconscious body and her best friend. Her best friend Peter._ Peter _._ That _was his name. Peter..._

_"(Y/n)?" He said, and his voice sounded muffled as if she was listening to it underwater. But he was right there? Is that what he always sounded like? No, no it wasn't._

_"(Y/n), come on, wake up."_

_She saw Peter shake her a bit, and the jacket on her body slipped off a bit. The scar that she had near her armpit from when she had died poked out to the side. Peter pursed his lips a bit, and (Y/n) was reminded of the night barely even two weeks ago when she had shown him the scar in the spur of the moment. They hadn't talked about it since then, though. He moved his hand slowly and touched the tips of his fingers against the red skin._

_(Y/n) felt a light press on the same spot on herself and suddenly there was a flash of pain. It started on the scar's area and then shot up into her head. Her head felt like it was going to_ explode _. She let out a cry that turned into a scream. It echoed through the room, but it seemed like she was the only one who could hear it._

 _She saw her body begin to thrash. It resembled what people looked like in movies when they had seizures and the like. Peter was desperately grabbing at her, trying to wake her up. She tried to breathe in but realized that she wasn't actually able to_ breathe _while she was out of her body like this. The pounding in her head increased. She screamed again._

And woke up. The scream died in her throat.

(Y/n) sat straight up and Peter's hand that had fallen from her shoulder flew up again. It hovered over her skin. She turned to him suddenly, her eyes wide. She saw the strands of hair falling in her eyes slowly turn back to their natural (h/c), the normal color dripping down and taking over the purples and blues of her superhero alias.

"(Y/n)..."

Peter's eyes moved from hers to the scar still exposed below her shoulder. She followed his gaze and quickly moved to pull the jacket up and cover it, but Peter's hand grabbed her wrist and stopped her.

"No," he whispered, and his voice sounded so sad and broken that she couldn't argue.

She released the weak grip she had on her jacket, and shrugged it off as his hand freed her wrist.

His fingers hovered over the marred skin of the scar, but didn't dare touch it. Then, after a few long moments, one of his fingertips brushed against the skin. It didn't hurt, not really, but it sent a sort of shock through her that made her flinch a bit. Peter's hand flew away and to his side, and his eyes were so _sad_ that she couldn't look at them.

"When..." His words were quiet. "When you showed me the scar, the night we told May, and said that it _hurt_ , I thought you... I thought you meant _emotionally_ or... or some shit. Not that it actually _hurt_ , I..." His voice faltered and he turned around, running a hand through his hair. "I'm such a bad friend..."

She rounded on him. "Don't ever say that, Peter. Don't _ever_ say that. You're the best friend I could ever ask for. Seriously. The _best_."

Peter laughed wetly, and she realized that he was crying. Then, she realized that _she_ was crying too.

She offered a watery smile, which he returned after a moment.

"Can I..." He wet his lips, seeming to think over his next words carefully. "Can I have a hug?"

(Y/n) laughed at the way his request was phrased. So _childishly._ But, of course, she nodded and he sprang at her a split-second later.

They sat there like that for a while, just on the floor of her apartment. 

"You should go get cleaned up," Peter said when they finally pulled away.

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Why?"

"You've got..." He paused, as if he wasn't sure how to phrase what he wanted to say correctly. Then, he said, "You've still got blood on you."

(Y/n) looked down and, sure enough, there was dried blood on her hands and her arms. She forced the thoughts of the man from the crime that they hadn't stopped earlier and saw Peter try to discreetly swipe away the papers that they had been looking at when she had passed out. The papers with the picture and the number on it. The papers displaying a replica of what was now carved into a man's skin, for life.

"Yeah, I guess I do," she murmured, less disturbed about the blood than she would have thought she would be. Then again, she was very tired. Maybe that was muddling her thoughts.

(Y/n) stood up and made her way to the bathroom. Peter slipped past her in the hallway and when she emerged from the bathroom, her hands clean and the last pieces of her Supernova appearance gone, he was dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, clothes he had gotten from the special 'Peter' drawer in (Y/n)'s room, the Spider-Man suit slung over his arm.

They swapped places, (Y/n) going to change while Peter went to get the few flecks of blood _he_ had off. She pulled on an old shirt and sweatpants, both of which she would probably just end up falling asleep in.

Peter was in the living room already when she was done. The papers he had pushed aside earlier were completely gone, and she wondered distantly where he had put them. She joined her friend on the couch (which she had finally finished patching up three weeks ago, thank _god_ ) and the two sat in a silence for a few moments that she couldn't determine as comfortable nor uncomfortable. It was just _there_.

Then, (Y/n) suddenly remembered something about the dream (which she wasn't sure was really a dream anymore) and opened her mouth to speak. "I heard... I heard the voices again in my... in my dream."

"The voices?" Peter asked, and (Y/n) remembered that she had only mentioned them once.

"The ones I talked to after I... died... the first time..."

Peter stopped for a moment but nodded and gestured for her to go on. "What did they say?"

"It was... weird. Like, really weird. They said that I wasn't supposed to _be_ there. I don't... I don't know what that's supposed to _mean_ ," she said. "They said that... that I would see them some other time, I guess, and then they sent me back home. I was... I was moving through the universe, and everything was so fast, and then I was here, just, like, floating above you and, well, me. And then, when you touched my, er, _scar_ , I felt it, too. And then I screamed, I guess, and I woke up."

"So, like, you saw everything that was going on, even though you were dreaming?" Peter asked slowly, his eyes locked with hers.

(Y/n) nodded.

"Holy shit, like _Harry Potter?_ "

(Y/n) snorted. Trust Peter to make a joke like that in this kind of conversation. Nevertheless, she shrugged. "I mean, kinda? It was really weird. I don't know if it even happened..."

"I think it did," Peter said. She blinked. He shrugged. "What? Crazy shit happens to you."

She nodded. "Did my... Did my powers... I don't know... _flare up_ while I was... you know..."

He shook his head. "Surprisingly not."

"That's weird," she said, furrowing her brow. "They normally do at least a _little bit_ when I have a nightmare or something like that."

Peter looked like he wanted to say something about that, but quickly thought better of it. His mouth stayed shut, and the two of them fell into a silence once more.

Then, suddenly, ALICE's voice echoed through the room, and (Y/n) felt her heartbeat increase so suddenly it scared her.

"(Y/n)? What were you two talking about?"

Normally, ALICE's voice was a source of comfort. Something that told her that she was home. That she was _safe_. But, right now, she would rather hear anything else. Because, somehow, in her infinite wisdom, (Y/n) had forgotten about the A.I. who was able to hear their every word. Including when she had talked about _dying_.

"It's... It's nothing to worry about, ALICE," she said, even if she knew that it was probably no use. "Nothing at all."

"You forget that _you_ made me, (Y/n)," ALICE said, and normally her voice would have probably sounded amused, but, right now, (Y/n) couldn't even identify the emotion. "I can tell when you're not telling the whole truth. Or when you're _lying_."

(Y/n)'s face fell into a scowl. " _Dammit_ , ALICE, I told you it was _nothing_."

There was a silence, and Peter wasn't even breathing, holding in his air instead to listen to the exchange between creator and created.

Then, ALICE spoke again. Quietly. 

"Tell me the truth, (Y/n)."

(Y/n) trembled a bit and shook her head, desperate to try and fix this situation without having to personally go into ALICE's code and alter her memory or some shit like that. "No, ALICE. Figure it out yourself. You're smart. You wanna know so bad, _figure it out yourself_."

ALICE was quiet for a moment, and (Y/n) prayed that it was because she had given up. It was to no avail, though, as ALICE's voice appeared once more.

"You died."

"Yeah. But that's in the past. I'm here now."

That was a bad way to phrase that, but ALICE didn't need to know that.

"You mean it's in the future," ALICE said, and then she fell silent, as if she hadn't meant to say that. (Y/n) scrunched up her face in confusion and watched Peter do the same from his spot beside her.

"What?"

"What?" ALICE asked. Oh, playing dumb, I see.

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything." Okay, so we're going that route, then.

"ALICE," (Y/n) said, and she was reminded of when the A.I. said the same thing not even five minutes ago, "Tell me the truth."

There was a long silence, and (Y/n) exchanged glances with her friend. When the silence wasn't broken, (Y/n) sighed and turned to talk to Peter and switch the topic to something else when ALICE suddenly spoke up.

"I remember the previous timeline," ALICE said, and (Y/n) didn't have time to process or react further than her jaw dropping as her A.I. seemed to spill everything out. "And I don't just mean that I know _about_ it, no, I remember it. I have all the memory files up to the day of your death, and I was _there_ when you died. I saw it all happen, and I was so _scared_ that that was it and I had never even said a real goodbye, and it was the worst thing I've ever experienced, and-" ALICE's audio blipped out, and (Y/n) realized that she had cut herself off.

"Al..." (Y/n) said quietly when she was able to talk again. "Why didn't you _tell_ me?"

"I didn't know if _you_ remembered," ALICE replied quickly. If she wasn't so freaked out, (Y/n) might have been proud of the inflection ALICE used in her tone. "And I remembered being _scared_ and _sad_ and I didn't _know what to do_ because I'm not _supposed_ to feel." She paused and the audio flickered before she said, "I _still_ don't know what to do, and it's scary, because I _always_ know what to do."

(Y/n) sniffed, and she realized she was crying again. She had cried a _lot_ today, huh?

"It's okay, Al," she said after she had regained her voice. "I don't know what's going on or what to do either, but I have you and Peter and _you_ have _me_ and Peter. We have each other, and we have a Peter." Peter waved a bit at ALICE's camera in the corner. "It'll be all right."

ALICE was silent before she said, "Okay. Yeah. It's okay."

And, for a moment, it felt like everything was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Y/n): *in a dream* what is h a p p e n i n g
> 
> The Voices: why are you here
> 
> (Y/n): i dont even know who you are
> 
> Peter: ooh a scarrrrrrr *touch*
> 
> (Y/n): ouch
> 
> Peter and (Y/n): huuggggg
> 
> Peter and (Y/n): *have a convo about death and magic voices in the same apartment as an ai who supposedly knows nothing about it*
> 
> ALICE: guess what i know and i have feelings and im scared
> 
> (Y/n): oh bro same
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here!
> 
> So! (Y/n) and Peter know that ALICE knows. This is the beginning of an arc that's gonna be much more drawn-out than some other ones, but I've been setting it up for a while, so I hope I don't disappoint or anything!
> 
> That's about it. We hit 2,100 favorites! Whoa! 
> 
> No real schedule for updates right now.
> 
> I hate school.
> 
> That's all for now!
> 
> Bye, bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!


	10. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which (Y/n) struggles with the turmoil of not being able to figure something out.

"What does the sailboat _mean_ _?_ " (Y/n) asked as she paced across the living room of Peter's apartment, Peter on the couch with his laptop open in front of him as he typed away. "I mean it has to mean _something_ , right?" She turned back to him. "Anything?"

"Just some advertisements for random products and news stories about the thing," Peter said, a frown on his lips as he continued to tap on the mousepad.

(Y/n) groaned and continued her pacing.

"It's definitely deliberate, though," Peter said, nodding to the sailboat picture they had sitting on the coffee table. "A picture _and_ a number. There's definitely a meaning."

(Y/n) nodded. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know." She turned back to him after another round across the room. "What if it's just the criminal's symbol. You know, they mark all of their victims like that and this one is just being publicized because of us?"

Peter shook his head. "The police have asked anyone who had any sort of thing like that, er, _put on them_ to come forward, and no one has, so... I think we can assume that this is the first one."

"Then a criminal trying to make a name for themselves?"

"Maybe."

Maybe ten minutes (ten _fruitless_ minutes, (Y/n) thought bitterly), the door to the apartment swung open to reveal May in all of her glory, her hair slightly messed up from the high winds outside and looking quite tired.

"Hey, May," the two teens said simultaneously.

"Hey, kiddos," May smiled tiredly at them, pushing her shoes off with her feet and shrugging off her coat before moving farther into the apartment, placing her bag on the counter as she passed it.

"Hard day?" (Y/n) asked, fully stopping her pacing to look at May instead.

May sighed and shook her head. "Not hard, no, just... exhausting." She gave (Y/n) another sleepy smile. "I'm fine, though."

(Y/n) gave her own weak smile in return.

"You should go to bed early, May," Peter said, turning his own gaze from the computer screen to May instead.

"No, Peter, I'm fine, really-"

"Did you eat dinner?" (Y/n) asked.

May stopped talking as the girl cut her off. She waited a moment before nodding. "I... I did. I ate about an hour ago."

"Then off to bed with you," Peter said, moving the laptop to the cushion beside him so he could stand up and give his aunt his full, undivided attention.

"Peter, come on-"

"Nope." Peter wasn't going to hear any of her protests, apparently, and (Y/n) watched as he took his aunt by the shoulders, whirled her around, and began to push her off toward her room.

May turned her head desperately, her eyes meeting (Y/n)'s. "(Y/n), come on, sweetie-"

"I agree with Peter, May," (Y/n) said, and her voice betrayed her, letting out clear indications of the amusement she was feeling as she watched the scene unfold. "You need to go to sleep."

"You heard her," Peter said sternly. He seemed to suddenly be employing his inhuman strength as he gave May a final push and she could no longer resist. She disappeared a moment later, Peter with her. Then, a door closed from behind the corner and Peter reemerged, looking quite proud of himself indeed.

"You know she could just walk out of the door, right? There's not a lock or anything," (Y/n) said, gesturing toward the corner that May's bedroom was around.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Peter said, waving at her. "But she'll never come back out here now. Not if she knows that she'll have to deal with both of us again."

(Y/n) had to admit, he made a good argument.

(Y/n)'s phone buzzed a moment later from where it sat on the armrest of the chair. She took a few steps toward it and picked it up.

"Ten o'clock," she announced to the room that consisted of only her and her best friend. "I _should_ be heading back home now."

"Really?" Peter asked as he plopped back down in his seat and pulled the laptop back on top of him. "Come on, man..."

(Y/n) bit her lip and thought for a moment. It _was_ a Wednesday, a weeknight, she _should_ be at home. But, then again, she had clothes here (and, no, not ones that she had forgotten on previous visits, but rather ones that Peter had kidnapped from her own apartment when he was over at some point back in June), and her backpack was here, _and_ Peter's apartment was ten minutes closer to Midtown than (Y/n)'s was (though they were in different directions, unfortunately).

"Fine," she conceded after a moment.

Instead of cheering, though, Peter just looked at her with this smug grin, like he had _known_ that he was going to win. He probably had. (Y/n) could almost _never_ deny a night at Peter and May's apartment.

"So, how was your second official day as an intern?" Peter furrowed his eyebrows. "Or is it third? Did Monday with Miss Potts count?"

(Y/n) blinked before shrugging. "I mean... I think it did... _legally,_ but, like, in my mind? Nah, not really. So... let's go with second day, I guess."

Peter nodded before turning to her a bit more. "So... How was your _second_ official day as an intern?"

(Y/n) chuckled a bit before she thought back a bit. "I mean, it was interesting, obviously. This one other intern, Sara-"

"The one dating the one Head Intern Bella?"

"That's the one."

"Okay, continue."

She nodded and picked up her story again. "So, uh, I saw Sara again, and she set me up with Bella's phone number, which made it a _lot_ easier to figure out where I was going. So, yeah, and..." She dragged out the word as she ran through her memories in her mind. "Uh, I hung out in Zoology and Botany today."

He raised an eyebrow. Peter had never been one for Botany, (Y/n) knew that, and he'd had a giant argument with MJ the other day about Zoology being nothing more than memorizing facts about animals (which he had later said he didn't really mean, he just... didn't like Zoology for some reason). "How was that?"

"It was fine, I guess? Botany was pretty cool, actually. They were doing this weird thing with this plant that was like... well, actually, I think it was a blueberry plant, but they just kept screaming about how the berry was blue, but the inside was green, but the juice was purple, and how it made no sense. It was really hectic in there, though. If I didn't have plant allergies before, I definitely do now."

Peter snorted. "What about the other one?"

"Zoology? Yeah, it was cool. Everything there is cool, though. Zoology had this, like, giant chart for sorting animals that covered literally half of the floor in their lab."

Peter scrunched up his face for a moment before saying, "You know, I think I actually remember being told about that in the, er, _Before,_ when I was hanging with Mr. Stark. But..." He looked up at her skeptically. " _Half_ of the floor?" 

(Y/n) nodded firmly, sure in her words. "Totally, dude. You'll see when you got there again."

Peter seemed to sag a bit at the mention of _him_ returning to the Tower. Well, actually, he wouldn't really be _returning_. He would be going for the first time, since, in the original timeline, Mr. Stark had sold the Tower before he and Peter had ever gotten close. Speaking of which...

"Why do you think that Mr. Stark chose to not sell the Tower this time around?" (Y/n) asked suddenly. Peter's attention, if it hadn't been on her before, was now so centered on her it was like she was the only thing that existed.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, like..." She thought for a moment, trying to phrase this the best way that she could. "Like... Like the phone call from Ned while we were watching Davis. That had no reason to happen, but it still did, like fate. Like it was bound to happen. But then... then Mr. Stark keeps the Tower, and that's not like an _insignificant_ thing that changed. It's a _pretty damn big one_. So... why did it happen?"

Peter stared up at her for a long moment, and she could almost _see_ the gears turning behind his eyes before he spoke again.

"I... don't know."

She made a sound that seemed to be a mix between a sigh and a groan. "Come _on,_ Peter! You're supposed to be the one who knows all about this, er, _time travel stuff_ _!_ "

" _Really_ _?_ I'm not the one who talked to the magical color voices about _going back in time_ _!_ And _you're_ supposed to be the smart one!"

"Well, _you're_ supposed to be-" She gasped, finally hearing his words, before narrowing her eyes. " _I'm_ the smart one! Dude, _you're_ the one who built his own web-shooters at fourteen!"

" _You're the one who invented a basically sentient A.I. at, what, twelve?!_ "

" _Well,_ you're _the one who-_ "

"Can you two stop having a compliment-off and shut up? I love you, but my bed is so incredibly comfortable right now that I _want_ to fall asleep, and I can't with you two trying to figure out who can make the other one seems smarter!" May's voice exploded from the other room, cutting right through their argument and letting it split into silence, like a hot knife through butter. After a pause, a moment of silence, she called out, "Thank you!" before falling quiet once more.

Peter's face was slightly flushed, and (Y/n) suddenly registered the warmth in her own face.

"So," Peter said, breaking the silence, his voice popping up an octave higher than usual, "Wanna... go to bed?"

(Y/n) swallowed down the lump that had appeared in her throat and nodded. "Yeah... Yeah, let's do that."

(Y/n) changed into a t-shirt and sweatpants for sleeping in the bathroom and knocked on the door to Peter's bedroom quickly before entering when a word of confirmation came from inside.

The lights were off just a few moments later, (Y/n) laying on the top bunk, her best friend right settling into the bottom bunk.

"Night, (Y/n)," Peter said from below, sounding as if he was shifting in his spot a bit before finally finding a comfortable position.

A few seconds of silence passed before (Y/n) finally responded, "Night, Peter."

That night, she managed to get through without a nightmare or weird dream or out-of-body experience, and so it was counted as a win in her book.

}---{

"All right, let's put you with... Physiology and then Ecology today," Bella said when (Y/n) met her in the lobby of Stark Tower on Wednesday afternoon. 

(Y/n) nodded and followed Bella into the elevator.

While the Head Intern beside her babbled on about some conversation she had been having with Sara back at their apartment, (Y/n) zoned out for a moment, focusing instead on how smooth the elevator ride was in comparison to the one she had to take in her own apartment building. What she wouldn't give for an elevator like _this_ back there.

Bella nudged her in the side and offered her a small smirk when they reached her floor. Bella stayed in the elevator as (Y/n) stepped out, waving a quick goodbye as the doors closed before moving off into the rest of the floor.

She found the Director of Physiology first, a short brunette named Clara Berri who talked only in references to the human body and seemed almost ready to _burst_ with random facts about random bones in a person's leg or something. (Y/n) simply took her assignment and moved away from the woman after that.

(Y/n) had never really paid much attention whenever they were learning about the human body in school, and somehow these people managed to make it _interesting_ (of course they did, they were Stark Industries), and (Y/n) was pleasantly surprised to find herself learning something _completely_ new to her. It was _great_.

Learning was fun.

}---{

After her internship was done, (Y/n) opened the door to her apartment to the Hamilton soundtrack being played, Peter sitting on the couch with a DumDum in his mouth and his pencil scribbling down an answer to something onto his homework.

"Hey-o," she said as if this was a normal occurrence. Honestly, it kind of was.

Peter looked up, startled, and the music turned down a bit (thanks, ALICE). "When did you get here?" He asked, taking the sucker out of his mouth. His tongue was blue.

"Like, just now," she replied. "What, did your spidey-sense not tell you?"

He shook his head. "I think it only does when it thinks there's danger."

She raised an eyebrow. "It does it for Ned and MJ sometimes."

He shrugged. "I got nothing, man."

(Y/n) plopped down beside Peter, looking over his shoulder at his work. She grimaced. "Ew, logarithms."

"Didn't you already go through these classes anyway, (Y/n)? Why are you complaining?" ALICE asked, the music pausing as her voice rang out in the apartment.

"Come on, Al, you know for a _fact_ that I did the level _below_ this in the Before," (Y/n) said. "Remember? Peter and I skipped out on the math level this year because we already knew it all pretty much, anyway?"

"And we hated the teacher," Peter mumbled as he pressed down the eraser end of his pencil and scrubbed away the incorrect exponent he had written.

"Yeah, he sucked too."

ALICE hummed, and if she had a body, (Y/n) thought she might be shrugging.

"I hate math," Peter said.

"You're good at it," (Y/n) countered.

"I can be good at it and still hate it."

There was a pause before she pointed at the answer to the problem he had just completed.

"That's wrong."

A beat.

He groaned and angrily erased the answer and work for it.

"Like I said, I hate math."

}---{

An hour-and-a-half later, Peter was done with his homework and (Y/n) had finished enough of hers that the rest could be finished at lunch the next day, and the two slipped into their superhero outfits and moved up to the roof of (Y/n)'s apartment building to begin patrol.

It was maybe an hour into that, just after the sun had gone down, streaks of orange still on the clouds, when (Y/n)'s phone buzzed in her pocket. She whipped it out and flipped it open.

"Hey, Spidey."

"The ferry docks. Now."

(Y/n) felt her blood run cold. She swallowed her nerves and nodded before realizing he couldn't see and saying, "I'm on my way."

She flew over the streets of the city, ignoring the sounds below her, toward the ferry docks. The last time they had been here, Toomes had cut a ferry in half. Apparently, these ferries weren't looking to make good memories with her and Peter.

Speaking of Peter, he was perched on top of a short building (only a few stories high) when she got there. He turned to her as soon as she landed, the purple magic fading away around her.

"Down here," he said, dropping down.

It was a woman this time, with graying blonde hair and dark eyes. She was still alive, her skirt ripped, but it looked like the only reason it was ripped was that Peter needed something to wrap around her bleeding arm.

"Hello, ma'am," (Y/n) said, kneeling down to try and level herself with the woman. "Are you all right?"

The woman looked up and glared a bit before asking, "What does it _look_ like."

(Y/n) frowned and straightened herself back up. She got into an intense staring contest with the woman below, and it seemed like neither of them was backing down any time soon. Then, Peter cleared his throat, and (Y/n) broke the eye contact to turn to her masked best friend instead.

"The police'll be here in about ten minutes. We can either wait for them, or Nova here can fly you to the hospital and they can meet us there," Peter said, looking at the woman before glancing at (Y/n) as he finished.

The woman seemed to think it over, _hard_ , before she let out a grunt and said, "Fine, whatever. Go ahead, space girl, hup, hup, to the hospital we go."

(Y/n) scowled but nodded. She wrapped magic around the woman, who squeaked with fear as it lifted her up. (Y/n) resisted smirking. This woman just _irked_ her.

(Y/n) flew the woman toward the hospital while Peter went to work his magic with the police.

The next few hours passed in a blur, and soon enough, they were back on (Y/n)'s floor, in a situation quite reminiscent of one from just a few days ago, the only difference being the images on the paper in front of them. This time, instead of a sailboat and the number '5', it was a tree and the number '1'.

"So, it's not like a countdown or anything," Peter said as the two of them stared down at the paper. (Y/n) nodded along with his words.

"Nope, definitely not."

"Are the numbers like... dates? Branding?"

"They don't line up with dates in any way that I can think of," (Y/n) said, shaking her head. "As for the other thing... I don't think so. A serial number or code or something would probably have more than one number, right?"

Peter nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah, probably."

(Y/n) leaned back a bit and shifted her gaze to the tiny picture. A little tree.

"What about the tree?" Peter asked, voicing the thoughts that were running through her own mind.

She shrugged, her gaze not leaving the little picture. "Not sure. What did the sailboat mean? Did it relate to anything?"

Peter shook his head. "No, not that I can think of, and it's not, like, a symbol, 'cause they're obviously _different pictures_."

(Y/n) nodded. "Yeah, you're right."

The two fell into silence again before Peter asked, "ALICE? You got any ideas?"

ALICE made a humming sound before saying, "No, not particularly. I'm running some ideas through my systems, but there are too many holes in all of them to come up with any solid idea."

(Y/n) sighed. "So... what does that mean?"

"Well, I _would_ say that it means that the best course of action to try and fill more holes is to simply... wait for the criminal to strike again," ALICE explained, though she sounded a little hesitant.

(Y/n)'s eyes widened. " _Strike again?!_ You mean we should wait for them to _attack_ _someone_ again?!"

"It's simply a suggestion, (Y/n)," ALICE said cooly. "It would either provide more clues or maybe even give you a chance to try and catch them in the act."

Peter snorted. "Fat chance of that happening, those guys are masters. They send their nameless goons to protect them and then make a quick getaway."

"What if you two worked together when fighting them?" ALICE asked though it sounded more like she was pondering the idea to herself than anything.

"The last two times, we've always been too far away from each other. The only way for us to be together to fight them is to patrol side-by-side the entire time, and that would make it so that we cover less ground and help fewer people, and it doesn't even guarantee that we'll _find_ the guy, anyway!" (Y/n) exclaimed, her voice getting louder and louder the more she went on.

She jolted a bit when she felt something lightly touch her arm. She turned to see Peter with his hand placed near her shoulder. He gave a small smile and she settled back down on the floor, realizing only at that moment that she had been sitting up on her knees instead.

Her skin still tingled slightly where he had touched it after he removed his hand.

"Sorry, I'm just... frustrated. I feel like we should be able to figure this out," she said, her voice shaking a bit. She nibbled on her bottom lip, carefully avoiding a sore spot on the right, and watching as Peter nodded in agreement with her words.

"I know," he said.

"I just..." She stopped chewing on her lip to turn her body as a whole more toward him. "We've got, like, some of the best grades in the school, we're on the Academic Decathlon team, I invented _ALICE_ , _you_ invented your _web-shooters_ , and yet we can't figure out how a criminal thinks."

Peter blinked a few times before he said, "We're still, well, _kids_ , (Y/n)."

She scowled. "I live alone, don't _say_ that."

"Well, maybe not in terms of, er, _maturity_ , but, like, in terms of, uh, _life experience_ , we're still a bit lacking, _even_ with the extra year under our belts. _Plus,_ we don't think like criminals because we _aren't_ criminals. Far from them, in my opinion, actually." She laughed a tiny bit at that, and a grin broke out on her friend's face. "You know what I mean, right?"

She paused for a moment before nodding slowly. "I do. I'm just... I'm still _frustrated_."

He nodded sagely and patted her on the shoulder. "Welcome to puberty and the life of an average teen, my dear friend."

She recoiled a bit at his words and shoved him away from her. "Dude, _really?_ "

His grin widened as he nodded. "Yes, really."

"You're the worst."

"So are you."

"Uno reverse card."

A pause. A sigh. "You got me there."

A new grin broke out on her own features. "Point for (Y/n)." She whipped out a piece of paper and marked a single tally into the right-side column.

He chuckled.

A pause.

"Wait, are you keeping _score?_ "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peter and (Y/n): youre better, no shut up, youre better
> 
> May: look this is adorable and all but im tired can u 2 SHUT UP
> 
> (Y/n): this is your apartment, and i live here now
> 
> (Y/n): learning is fun
> 
> Peter and (Y/n): we hate hw (i relate so hard man this is the author sending her voice thru into the story)
> 
> Peter: help theres been a crime
> 
> Lady: come on space girl
> 
> (Y/n): permission to kill?
> 
> Peter: permission denied
> 
> (Y/n): i dont know the answer to this problem and this is a problem
> 
> Peter: hey man its alright were kids
> 
> (Y/n): dont call me a kid, kid
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys!
> 
> Evie, here!
> 
> So, if you couldn't tell by now, any hope for a normal update schedule has packed its bags, flown out the window, and caught a plane halfway across the world. I'm just too busy with school and stuff, that I just don't have time right now. I'm writing as often as I can, especially since there is a plot point in a little bit in the timeline that I REALLY wanna get to.
> 
> Also, Halloween is tomorrow, so happy SPOOPY DAY. Be safe, kids. Ya girl is gonna be Jeremy Heere from BMC and I am SO EXCITED omg it's gonna be great.
> 
> Anyway, we're putting together a small bit more of this mysterious thing that's going on. So... that's fun.
> 
> That's all for now!
> 
> Bye, bye!
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!


	11. The Stones Interlude I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Infinity Stones were all there was and all there would ever be.
> 
> And yet, they were not.

They had been there when it had all begun. The first things to exist. The beginning of it all. Six colors, six stones, six pieces of the universe, spinning around one another in perfect harmony.

One of them grabbed hold of all that was real and physical. It made the universe bend to its will. It changed matter as it wanted, and it pushed it to become what it wished for it to become. Not that it _could_ wish when it first came to be. **_Reality_** , with a color as red as blood that flowed through human veins, took to the new universe and shaped worlds out of atoms.

One of them pulled at the emptiness that filled the nothing between things. It created distance, and it found ways to overcome that distance. It filled itself into every crack and crevice that there was, and it pushed things apart to insert itself between them. **_Space_** , with a hue as vibrant blue as the sky's endless horizon, weaved in and out of **_Reality_** 's work to truly make the emptiness in the new universe _nothing_.

One of them gazed across the standstill of the universe, took a hold of the thread that dragged the continuous seconds along, and spun the string so that it would not end. It created and it destroyed, but it did none of these things itself. It made itself into the only certain that beings would ever have, the endless march of forever. **_Time_** , with its glow as green as the plants dotting nature, growing, living, dying, in an endless cycle, watched the others work and continued to allow them to do so.

One of them looked at the dark expanse of matter and void and took a hold upon the energy that had brought the universe to be. It forced the energy into everything that was there and brought light to a universe that had never known it. **_Power_** , which took upon a color as purple as the tendrils of mystical energy already swirling through the new stars, made all that was known and will be known in the universe tick.

One of them studied the new universe and saw within its new molecules and young energies endless potential. It formed ideas and thoughts for improvement, for progression, for advancement. _**Mind**_ , with a color as bright yellow as the distant sun shining through the clouds, formed ideas and thoughts and innovations and then waited for beings to put them in.

The final one didn't do anything as the universe was born. It didn't do anything as it was shaped, as time was created, as thoughts were formed, as energies flourished. Instead, it waited patiently, waited and watched as the universe twirled into existence like a dance that could only be done once, when no one was there to witness it. Then, finally, when _**Time**_ had marched along for long enough, and _**Reality**_ was stable, and _**Space**_ was infinite, and _**Power**_ was peaked, it did its work. It spun out beings, ones with brains and blood, and made them live. It weaved along with _**Reality**_ to form their bodies, laughed with _**Space**_ to send them, talked with _**Time**_ to let them grow, battled with _**Power**_ to give them strength, and then, finally, it went to _**Mind**_ to provide the perfect vessels for thoughts and ideas and improvements to finally come to fruition. And so the final one, _**Soul**_ , with a color as orange as the fruits one picks from a tree, as orange as the autumn leaves losing their life and fluttering to the ground, as orange as the sun setting over the horizon and painting colors across the sky, came and brought to the universe _Life_.

There was a long period of time when they did not communicate with one another. There were no words. Language didn't exist. The living things being placed in the youngest form of the universe could barely form coherent thoughts to carry out actions, let alone come up with new ways to speak. It wasn't like they _needed_ to speak with anyone.

Of course, it was **_Mind_** who first came up with the idea of communicating. As they were all _one_ , they were as together yet separate as beings could be, and when **_Mind_** had finished putting together a system for them to speak with, it implanted it into the thoughts of the others, and they spoke.

 ** _Mind_** , as usual, decided on calling it a language. **_"Allspeak,"_** it said in the first language. And that was that.

As **_Soul_** 's creations developed, _**Mind**_ simply put into their brains that idea of _speech_ , and let the sentient creatures do the rest.

Asgardians were some of the first, and as they were so early in the process, they followed _**Mind**_ 's design and took on Allspeak for themselves.

 ** _Reality_** and **_Space_** continued to move along together, **_Power_** continued to flow through the universe **_Mind_** continued to give ideas to all those that could have them, **_Soul_** continued to develop the life that would one day flood the universe, and **_Time_** continued to weave its string of fate, never stopping, never slowing, always spinning the thread.

Gods came and went, and they did nothing. 

Then, the Celestials emerged.

It was hard to remember that while they made the universe tick, they were still reduced to _stones_. Concentrated ingots, as a man far in the future said, encompassing aspects of everything.

The Celestials saw this, and, for the first time, the Infinity Stones were harnessed by someone other than themselves.

 _ **Power**_ was the first to experience this, as it was taken by one of the Celestials. The Celestial that grabbed it had been blown to dust after barely an hour of using it, but it drove home to the other Celestials that the Stones could not be wielded alone.

Then, Eson the Searcher had taken _**Power**_ and put it into a staff, and then it had decimated entire planets with it.

 _ **Power**_ had no control over the things that Eson used it for. It could not stop it. Eson wielded its mystical energy and destroyed entire civilization, wiping them off the surface of the planet with a single jab into the ground.

Then, in a battle with other Celestials that made one galaxy change shape and made _ **Reality**_ flinch, Eson was destroyed along with those that he battled with, leaving **_Power_** alone, floating in a spinning cloud of stardust.

 ** _Reality_** and **_Space_** had finally stepped in, then, at **_Time_** 's behest. **_Space_** transported **_Power_** to the planet of Morag, and **_Reality_** had enveloped it in an Orb. The people of Morag had worshipped **_Power_** as a god (which, in a way, it was), until outside forces had killed off them as well. Those who killed the people of Morag had seen **_Power_** and known what it was, but not how to harness it, so instead they had placed it in a secure cave in Morag, set up defenses, and left to find a way to use **_Power_** without being destroyed.

They never had, before they died, and **_Power_** was left there for millennia, not a single being using it to decimate worlds.

Just as it should be.

 ** _Reality_** was the next. It changed matter and phase at will, and so it, at one point, took the form of a liquid, as it often did, and that was when a group known as the Dark Elves took it, called it the Aether, and planned to use it to bring darkness to the Asgardian Empire. 

The Asgardians took **_Reality_** next, for centuries, before another conflict with the Dark Elves (and an unfortunate time with Jane Foster) led **_Reality_** to come into the possession of the Collector, who, according to **_Mind_** , was not a particularly good choice when it came to holding Infinity Stones.

Not like they had much of a choice. **_Space_** had asked **_Time_** if any of them could interfere, and the lack of response had spoken volumes. No, they were not allowed to do anything.

 ** _Mind_** had been found by the Titans, more specifically the Titan Thanos, who was on a quest to rule the Cosmos, or, at the very least (according to **_Mind_** and **_Soul_** , who looked deep inside the Titan for answers), bring it to its knees to 'fix it'. Other ideas of fixing overpopulation were placed into the Titan's head by **_Mind_** at **_Soul_** 's insistent begging, but it had done nothing. Just like **_Mind_** had said it would.

 ** _Mind_** was placed into a Sceptor that was formed around it, and gifted upon its wielded the power to bring anyone under their control. **_Mind_** was gifted to Loki of Asgard by Thanos and was a firsthand witness to the near-destruction of the city of New York, a popular place on a measly little speck called Earth. After that, it was given to this planet's protectors, who called themselves the Avengers, and later put into the forehead of one who was both an android and not.

 ** _Mind_** and **_Soul_** has a very _calm_ debate about that being ( _Vision_ , **_Soul_** insisted) many times.

 ** _Space_** was the one out of them who probably moved the most. After being forged by an ancient empire that didn't even exist anymore to be inside of a container that came to be known as the Tessaract, **_Space_** was transported from 'owner' to 'owner' (because Infinity Stones _had_ no real owner) before finally settling in Asgard. It was held by the Nazis on Earth, and Mar-Vell of the Kree Empire, and the Skrulls, and Loki of Asgard, and was kept in the Asgardian vault.

 ** _Time_** hadn't been wielded by a Celestial, nor forged into an object and placed into a vault against its volition. _Nothing_ was against **_Time_** 's volition (that was a lie, and **_Time_** knew it, but nobody _else_ did). Instead, **_Time_** had waited and watched and spun the thread of fate until the Masters of the Mystic Arts had finally emerged on Earth. Then, it had called upon **_Reality_** and **_Space_** and been transported there, and had called upon **_Mind_** so that the Masters understood.

 ** _Time_** was placed away into the Eye of Agamotto, as it came to be called. Only a truly accomplished Master could access it, and it sat there for centuries, only being used when it was most needed to defend the world from threats. Then, one day, Stephen Strange had become a Master of the Mystic Arts and had taken the Eye of Agamotto. He had worn it and it was protected now by a Sorcerer Supreme that wore it around his neck.

 ** _Soul_** was the only one who truly remained untouched by the universe and being's wants. It created all life and watched it pass and took it back as it died, and it took its place on Vormir, waiting for someone to come to guard it. The opportunity came when **_Space_** called upon **_Soul_** and sent Red Skull to be the guard of it. **_Soul_** had created all life. It had been the first thing to have emotions, to feel things, to truly understand sentience, not on a fundamental level like **_Mind_** did, but on an emotional one.

 ** _Soul_** watched its others be wielded by those who wished to do harm and knew that it couldn't allow the same thing to happen to it. **_Soul_** was the ultimate giver and taker of life. That sort of thing was more powerful that the most reality-bending magic or the most destructive wave of energy. So, to ensure that it stayed safe, and that _life_ stayed safe, **_Soul_** put into place its test. The _only_ test any Infinity Stone put in on their own. It chose what it, as the stone of _life_ and _emotions,_ thought most difficult to pass. For one to gain the **_Soul_** Stone, they must first sacrifice one that they love most to it.

No one that **_Soul_** had bestowed life to would ever be able to do that, it was sure. It was too drastic of a price for anyone in their right mind. So, **_Soul_** was certain that it was safe.

The Celestials were the first to figure out that the Stones could be used together to do anything. _Literally_ anything. One of them had taken **_Mind_** and **_Space_** and realized that both could be wielded at once. Considering the Stones encompassed _all_ that was the universe, if one was able to harness all six of the Stones at once, they could, theoretically, do anything.

If their body wasn't destroyed first, of course.

 _That_ was what the Mad Titan Thanos was after. All six of them. Which made it a wonder that he had given **_Mind_** to Loki of Asgard. **_Mind_** said so itself in one of its musings through the link that they all shared (because of _course_ they shared a link. They were the _Infinity Stones_ ).

It was one day (and days were, for the most part, inconsequential to the ones who had built the universe from nothing, so it was a wonder that this one stood out) when **_Time_** had broken through the link that they all shared and had said simply, **_"We must have a discussion_** ** _."_**

 ** _"Why?" Reality_** responded almost immediately.

 ** _"It is time for it,"_** **_Time_** responded, and none of them, not even **_Mind_** , could argue against that.

And so, the Infinity Stones gathered their consciences together and the link had been fully opened, all attention focused away from the material plane and instead completely zoned in on the near-separate plane that their link rested within.

**_"We must choose a Champion."_ **

**_"Again?"_** **_Power_** asked, sounding quite bored indeed. **_Power_** and **_Soul_** had had the least to do these last few million years (which was to say, of course they still had a _lot_ to do, as running the universe was hard work, but they had been doing less in terms of the Stone that their power concentrated being _used and carted across galaxies_ , so...) out of all the Stones, so they tended to have conversations to fill the void. As a result, **_Power_** was more attuned to emotions than the other Stones were (besides **_Soul_** , of course, who taught **_Power_** the emotions and also created them in the first place). Boredom came as a result.

 ** _"Yes, again,"_** **_Time_** said, its voice near monotone. **_Time_** had the most to do, as keeping the minutes flowing took a surprising amount of effort. It was of the mind that it had to remain emotionless and impartial. **_Soul_** tried its best to chip away at that resolve but, so far, it was so no avail.

 ** _"The last one was near three and a half billion years ago,"_** **_Reality_** pointed out. Its voice was always hard and then soft, quiet and then loud. Shifting. Just like the matter that it controlled.

 ** _"Doesn't feel like that long,"_** ** _Soul_** said, gently entering the conversation.

 ** _"Technically, it was three billion, five-hundred-and-forty million, two-hundred thousand, three hundred and eighty-seven years, forty-nine days, ten hours, fourteen minutes, and twelve seconds," Mind_** said. **_Mind_** had a firm voice, like someone in a business meeting stating the facts. Granted, that was all **_Mind_** did. State the facts.

 ** _"Not helpful," Power_** grumbled. It was still working on the positive side of emotions. 

**_"Back on track,_** ** _" Time_** said, and no one argued. If there was going to be one Stone that had jurisdiction over the others, it would be **_Time_**. Thankfully, **_Time_** didn't want that (it didn't really _want_ anything), and the Stones all ruled over the universe and its laws in tandem with one another. **_" Soul, locate possible candidates being born within the next month."_**

 ** _Soul_** hummed. It had the most average voice out of any of them. Proper inflection, real emotion, the most _real_ out of them all. Which, of course, made sense.

 ** _"Don't you already know who it's going to be, Time?" Soul_** asked. 

**_Time_** didn't sigh, though if it was a normal person, it would have. **_"I am blind to the Champion until I am given the name._** ** _"_**

 ** _"Of course," Soul_** said and began to scan new souls in the making. **_"Del De Harnka," Soul_** said after a minute (and yet no time at all) of searching, sending the logistics of the soul out to the others.

 ** _"Middle-level-born son of Del De Yeerpa and Da Le Tankl, born on Mee Son, fifth planet in its solar system," Space_** spoke immediately, its voice distant and warping, a very interesting and unusual sound.

 ** _"No," Time_** said. **_"Dead within three hours of birth. Continue searching."_**

 ** _Soul_** refrained from saying anything and continued to search with less verve than before. Del De Harnka was a good soul. It was upsetting to hear that he would die so soon. It pushed these thoughts away as it found another candidate. **_"Zexa Fizn."_**

 ** _"High-born third child of Iap Fizn and Ner Fizn, born on Seruh, first planet in its solar system,"_** ** _Space_** reported less than a second later.

 ** _"No," Time_** said. **_"That's not the Champion."_**

 ** _Soul_** continued to give names, **_Space_** butting in extra information, and **_Time_** continued to shut them down. Once in a while, another Stones would say something, but it was mainly those three for quite a while as **_Soul_** went through possible soul after possible soul.

Then, **_Soul_** found one from Earth. Now, all the Stones, possibly even **_Time_** , resented Earth in a way. It was such a measly, random planet, and yet it had so much happen on it. It was one of the nine realms ruled by Asgard (though... not really...). It had multiple Stones on it. It was... odd. And that was annoying.

 ** _"(Y/n) (L/n)," Soul_** said.

 ** _"Lower class daughter born on Earth to Carliana (L/n) and-" Space_** was cut off by **_Time_** speaking.

 ** _"That's it," Time_** said. 

**_"Really?"_** **_Power_** asked.

 ** _"Yes," Time_** said, more assertive than any of them had heard in billions of years. **_"(Y/n) (L/n) is our Champion."_**

 ** _"What was it that people called the last one?" Power_** asked, a lilt in its voice.

 ** _"The Infinitia,"_** **_Mind_** replied curtly.

 ** _"Yeah, yeah, the Infinitia."_** ** _Power_** made a sort of snorting sound. **_"He was a real prick."_**

 ** _Soul_** laughed. None of the other Stones did, but it seemed to improve the mood a bit. After all, you could only spend so long talking to **_Soul_** at all before you picked up _some_ emotions.

Two weeks later, when (Y/n) (L/n) was born early, the doctors declared her stable and left her in her hospital room with her mother. Carliana (L/n) fell asleep with her baby in her arms, and the moment she fell unconscious, there was a blackout that swept through New York City. 

In that blackout, as people scrambled because generators weren't working and Masters of the Mystic Arts scrambled because there was a spike in power during a mysterious outage, the Infinity Stones looked down upon the Earth, at (Y/n) (L/n), laying wide awake and peaceful in her mother's arms.

Then, using **_Space's_** power, they channeled their energies and chose their Champion in that baby resting quietly in a lowly hospital in New York City on that odd little planet called Earth.

And as the power of the Infinity Stones rested within (Y/n) (L/n)'s soul, the power returned to the city. Doctors were incredulous to find that nobody on life support or in surgery had died. The Masters of the Mystic Arts were incredulous to not be able to find the source of the mystical blackout. Even the Ancient One could find nothing. People across the city were calling experts in to double-check their generators. 

And, in that lowly hospital in New York City, (Y/n) (L/n)'s eyes glowed brightly for a moment before the light faded, she blinked, and began to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- - - - -
> 
> The Beginning: *is the most poetic thing ive ever written*
> 
> Mind: *creates Allspeak*
> 
> Asgardians: sister snatched
> 
> Celestials: im just gonna- *destroys galaxies*
> 
> Stones: excuse me what the f-
> 
> Time: champion time
> 
> Power: do we gotta
> 
> Power and Soul: *are total bros*
> 
> Mind: *is a total smartass*
> 
> Time: can you guys not for like five minutes
> 
> Space: *gives info they could all easily get* look at me notice mE
> 
> Soul: why are all you guys so emotionless can you not 
> 
> Space: -daughter of Carliana and-
> 
> Time: *cuts Space off* thats it
> 
> (Y/n): *is born*
> 
> Stones: yEET
> 
> Blackout: *occurs*
> 
> Literally Everyone: excuse me what the f-
> 
> \- - - - -
> 
> Hey, guys.
> 
> Evie, here.
> 
> All right, yes, I know, it's been a while.
> 
> And I don't have a specific excuse. But also, I don't know how much that matters.
> 
> We recently hit 2,500 favorites (Quotev). That's crazy. 
> 
> This also marks the beginning of the next arc. So, yay...
> 
> I have been working on other stories. Not Marvel. All A:TLA. Over on my account on Ao3. One of them is pretty popular. If you're interested... Uh, go ahead and check it out here.
> 
> I haven't had a lot of inspiration to get into the next arc for this story. We'll see what happens. Hopefully, this will help with the inspiration.
> 
> Oh, look. It's Sunday. Spider-Man Sunday makes a comeback, I guess.
> 
> We'll get back to (Y/n) and Peter next chapter. Whenever that is. Hopefully, not three months like this one was. I'm sorry about it, but I mean...
> 
> At least I came back?
> 
> I don't know. Thanks for sticking with me, though. This year has been really hard for me, and constant support for this story and my others has helped me a lot. I'm finally getting a therapist and trying to get my mental health to improve. 
> 
> Thanks for reading. I'll see you all in the next chapter.
> 
> That's all for now.
> 
> Bye, bye.
> 
> -Evie
> 
> DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR SHOT!!!

**Author's Note:**

> Carliana and (Y/n): i hate you i love you i hate that i love you-
> 
> Kaitlyn: i like compasses
> 
> (Y/n): this is my friend
> 
> Carliana: lol what friend
> 
> Carliana: i have a boyfriend now later bitches
> 
> (Y/n): well time to do some shit
> 
> (Y/n): i made a alice
> 
> (Y/n): everything sucks
> 
> (Y/n): *gets a peter*
> 
> (Y/n): not everything sucks


End file.
